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Hepatitis C is curable; however, getting rid of the infection does not take away accompanying liver risks. In addition, many people who are infected don’t even know it – making eradication a distant, but possible, future.
Peter Vickerman, BSc, DPhil, from Bristol University’s Division of Global Public Health, and colleagues from the University of New South Wales (UNSW) in Australia looked at a population in which transmission is common and learned some insightful lessons.
The World Health Organization (WHO) set a target to eliminate hepatitis C by 2030, and one of the ways that can become a reality is by identifying commonly infected populations. Prisons are one place where the virus thrives. As many as one in six inmates have hepatitis C in parts of the United States and Europe. It’s suspected that non-sterile injecting equipment is to blame for the high transmission rates.
“On the downside, it is clear that prisons act as incubators of hepatitis C, driving the epidemic both within the prison system and in the community at large,” Andrew Lloyd, MD, from the UNSW, said in a news release. “On the plus side, they also offer a unique environment to cure people of the disease and address the risk behavior that fuels transmission.”