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Source: http://bangordailynews.com/2017/10/1...s-hepatitis-c/
Another outbreak related to the nation?s opioid crisis: hepatitis C
By Katie Zezima, The Washington Post ? October 17, 2017 6:37 pm
CHARLESTON, W.Va. ? The nation?s opioid epidemic has unleashed a secondary outbreak: The rampant spread of hepatitis C.
New cases of the liver disease have nearly tripled nationwide in just a few years, driven largely by the use of needles among drug users in their 20s and 30s, spawning a new generation of hepatitis C patients. Because a treatment that cures the disease costs tens of thousands of dollars, is limited by insurance and Medicaid, and is mostly unavailable to people who are still using illicit drugs, there likely will be financial and public health ramifications for decades to come.
Here in West Virginia, which has the nation?s highest rates of overdose deaths and new hepatitis C and hepatitis B infections, public health officials are attempting to identify as many new hepatitis carriers as possible ? and are girding for decades of repercussions.
?If we don?t cure a significant number of the people who are injecting, in 20 years from now, the hospitals in this part of the world will be flooded with these people with end stage liver disease, which has no cure,? said Judith Feinberg, a professor of behavioral medicine and psychiatry at the West Virginia University School of Medicine. ?I can see it coming at me like the headlights of a train. Just coming, coming, coming and I?m thinking, ?Doesn?t anybody want to jump out of the way???
The number of new, confirmed hepatitis C cases nationwide rose from 853 in 2010 to 2,436 in 2015, according to the Centers for Disease Control ? a 15-year high. But tens of thousands more are believed to have contracted the disease and don?t know it...
Another outbreak related to the nation?s opioid crisis: hepatitis C
By Katie Zezima, The Washington Post ? October 17, 2017 6:37 pm
CHARLESTON, W.Va. ? The nation?s opioid epidemic has unleashed a secondary outbreak: The rampant spread of hepatitis C.
New cases of the liver disease have nearly tripled nationwide in just a few years, driven largely by the use of needles among drug users in their 20s and 30s, spawning a new generation of hepatitis C patients. Because a treatment that cures the disease costs tens of thousands of dollars, is limited by insurance and Medicaid, and is mostly unavailable to people who are still using illicit drugs, there likely will be financial and public health ramifications for decades to come.
Here in West Virginia, which has the nation?s highest rates of overdose deaths and new hepatitis C and hepatitis B infections, public health officials are attempting to identify as many new hepatitis carriers as possible ? and are girding for decades of repercussions.
?If we don?t cure a significant number of the people who are injecting, in 20 years from now, the hospitals in this part of the world will be flooded with these people with end stage liver disease, which has no cure,? said Judith Feinberg, a professor of behavioral medicine and psychiatry at the West Virginia University School of Medicine. ?I can see it coming at me like the headlights of a train. Just coming, coming, coming and I?m thinking, ?Doesn?t anybody want to jump out of the way???
The number of new, confirmed hepatitis C cases nationwide rose from 853 in 2010 to 2,436 in 2015, according to the Centers for Disease Control ? a 15-year high. But tens of thousands more are believed to have contracted the disease and don?t know it...