Four million new infections are expected annually with 70 % of them becoming chronic. Approximately 5% of chronic patients will die from the long-term effects of the disease.
A relatively new discovery identified in 1989, hepatitis C is one of five strains in the hepatitis family (A, B, C, D, and E) and is one of the fastest spreading viral diseases. Hepatitis means inflammation of the liver, ‘hepa’ means liver and ‘itis’ means inflammation.
Once infected, the liver cannot properly accommodate bile for digestion and will have difficulty eliminating toxins from the blood stream. Although 80% of the people infected have no symptoms, for those that do, the signs can be abdominal discomfort, nausea and vomiting, fever and fatigue, and with about 25% of patients, jaundice (bile build up in the blood that causes yellowing of the skin and the whites in the eyes) may occur.
Of those exposed to HCV, a little less than half (around 40%) recover completely, but all others, with symptoms or not, will become chronic carriers and 20% of them will develop cirrhosis and 20% of those will acquire liver cancer. People can go decades and not know they carry HCV.
In the United States, with African Americans and Hispanic the infection rate is more common and is in connection with lower education and lower economic status.