Hepatitis C virus

 All U.S. adults should be tested for hepatitis C, the task force says

All U.S. adults should be tested for hepatitis C, the task force says

MONDAY, March 2, 2020 (HealthDay News) — Every adult in the United States must be tested for hepatitis C as part of their basic health care, an influential panel of preventive medicine experts notes.

The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force. U.S. (USPSTF) now recommends testing for hepatitis C infection be done on all people ages 18 to 79, the group announced Monday.

Hepatitis C infections have soared as a result of the opioid epidemic, and heroin users spread the virus when sharing needles, commented a member of the task force, Dr. Michael Barry is the head of Massachusetts General Hospital's Informed Medical Decision Program.

An estimated 2.4 million Americans now live with chronic hepatitis C, according to the USPSTF. There were an estimated 44,700 new infections in 2017, almost four times as many cases as in 2010.

Dr. Douglas Dieterich, head of the Institute of Liver Medicine at Mount Sinai Health System in New York City, noted that this is happening even though there is a safe and effective treatment for hepatitis C, the cost of which has been gradually falling.

"In America. In the US, our goal was to have eliminated hepatitis C by 2030, but we are losing that battle," Dieterich lamented. "More cases appear than we cure. This [recommendation on testing] will have an immense benefit for everyone, by detecting those younger people."

Hepatitis C infection is a long-term, chronic form of liver disease in up to 4 in 5 people who contract the virus, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The United States of America damages the liver, making a person more likely to develop liver cancer or die from liver disease.

Federal law requires insurance companies to cover preventive health care services recommended by the task force without charges for patients.

The test, though, is just around $8 in this situation, according to Dieterich. The advice is intended largely for doctors, who should be reminded to incorporate this test in their routine laboratory testing.

In its 2013 recommendation, the USPSTF limited hepatitis C testing to the postwar generation, born between 1945 and 1965, Barry commented.

"The underlying logic was that about 78 percent of hepatitis C infections were in that age range, largely because of intravenous drug experimentation in the Vietnam era," Barry indicated.

There has now been an increase in new hepatitis C infections among young people, particularly among those aged 18 to 44, he said.

"It's almost certainly attributable to the opioid crisis and the rise in intravenous drug usage," Barry explained. "We're now discovering that hepatitis C affects people of all ages, especially the young."

The fastest increase in hepatitis C infections has occurred among young adults ages 20 to 39 who inject drugs, according to the task force.

Public health authorities are particularly frustrated that there is now a cure for hepatitis C that has proved safe and effective, curing more than 90 percent of cases with almost no side effects, Dieterich observed.

Furthermore, according to an editorial published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, the cost of the cure has progressively decreased, with free-market competition reducing the cost of therapy by at least 70%.

A typical eight-week antiviral regimen to cure hepatitis C costs about $26,400, and last year, a 12-week regimen with a generic drug went on the market, the editorial notes. Louisiana and Washington's state are evaluating drug purchase plans for a flat fee that would reduce the cost even more.

"We should be able to discover instances that were previously undetected, which are growing more prevalent, by testing all persons aged 18 to 79 for hepatitis C," Barry added. "Treatments have improved, but identifying individuals and providing therapy is still a critical step, and that's what the guideline is all about."

The working group's recommendations appear in the March 2 online edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) U.S. have more information on hepatitis C.