Over 2 million co-infected with HIV, hepatitis C

Of these, more than half, or 1.3 million, are people who inject drugs (PWID) -- HIV infections caused by injecting drugs.

The study revealed that HIV-infected people are on an average six times more likely than HIV-uninfected people to have HCV infection.

The study shows that not only are people with HIV at much higher risk of HCV infection, groups such as people who inject drugs have extremely high prevalence of HCV infection - over 80 percent.

HIV and HCV infections are major global public health problems, with overlapping modes of transmission and affected populations.

Globally, there are 37 million people infected with HIV and around 115 million people with chronic HCV infection.

Improvement in the surveillance of HCV and HIV is imperative to help define the epidemiology of coinfection and inform appropriate policies for testing, prevention, care and treatment to those in need.

The study shows the need to scale up prevention interventions, such as needle and syringe programmes and opioid substitution therapy, as well as access to HIV and HCV treatment, to reduce morbidity and new infections, the researchers suggested.

The study, published online in The Lancet Infectious Diseases, systematically reviewed 783 medical studies from worldwide sources to build the first global estimates on the prevalence of HIV/HCV co-infection (measured by HCV antibody) as a public health problem. 

Hepatitis C treatment that brought happiness back to my married life

Article by Mr. Gyan Sagar

**************************

Hepatitis c disease is a very dangerous disease. When i came to know that my second wife who is pregnant. I had gone in rajendra nagar hospital on the date 18/10/2013 in rajendra nagar to meet Dr. Sunita Chandra. She write in her prescription for medical test & when i got the medical report it said my wife is  Hepatitis C Positive

After I got this medical report, i had become so disturbed i also had a fight with my wife that her family fooled me that her family did not tell me about this disease & her family had done wronged me and now i will not sustain this relationship. I sent my wife to her village. After that i had decided that i will not make this relation on a/c of  HCV!

But after some time i made a call to my Ustadji who is my best friend. He advised me Mr. Gyan, if you have the same disease, “what will be your decision!” i had got my answer that i was wrong there!

After that i started to search on internet  for hepatitis C treatment & i made a call to my wife to come back to my home. I told her that I will give her the treatment after that once again i try to retest may be medical report was  incorrect!

But once again i had got medical report HCV Positive. After some time i found a website for Kamalahar. It was an ayurvedic medicine for six month course. I had ordered to the owner of website kindly send me this medicine. He told me I will have to deposit the money in their account after that they will send the medicine. When i paid him the medicine came after one week later. All medicine had come to my residence. He advised me after 3 month later we will get the HCV result Negative in medical test. After that i had started the treatment of my wife. Today 02/06/2014 when Dr. Mitali Das Saha told me that a long period has become passed and advised me to do the test of Anti HCV.

  After that i had gone Care Dignostic for this test and after one day i got the report.

 I came to know then anti HCV result has come NON REACTIVE & her illness has finished i am so much surprised. Because doctor advised me for anti HCV test also  so i  do this test & my report also come NON REACTIVE.

I had never thought that her illness will finished in a very small period but god is great.

Hepatitis C fully cured by 8 months treatment through ayurvedic medicine Kamalahar

Ashish Das, a resident of West Bengal, was suffering from Hepatitis C. Ashish was in a bad condition when he was admitted to Apollo Hospital in Kolkata. He was bleeding from nose, mouth, etc. Doctors told him that he will not survive for more than 1 month and discharged him from hospital saying that they can’t do any anything. His brother-in-law found out about Kamalahar through internet and bought it for him. Mr. Ashish started taking Kamalahar and after 6 months of treatment with Kamalahar, he was feeling much better. He went back to his doctor and they did the tests and told him that he is healthy now and his liver is in much better condition. Since he was feeling better now, the doctors also suggested that he should also take Exxura along with Kamalahar. After 2 more months of Kamalahar along with Exxura, he got fully cured of hepatitis C and is now hepatitis negative. He has also started going back to work.

Hepatitis C education crucial to cut high infection rate in Middle East and North Africa

The Middle East and North Africa region has one of the highest rates of hepatitis C in the world, experts have revealed.

About nine million people in the region are believed to be infected with the potentially lethal virus, which can lead to cirrhosis of the liver or liver cancer.

In the UAE alone, about 14 in every 100,000 people will become infected at some point in their lives.

The figures were revealed during a conference in Dubai that brought together more than 200 doctors to discuss the virus, the best ways to manage it and the medical breakthroughs that may help to reduce its growing prevalence.

According to the World Health Organisation, about 150 million people globally are chronically infected with hepatitis C, and more than 350,000 people die from related liver diseases each year.

Despite the progress and medical breakthroughs that have taken place over the last decade, hepatitis C transmission rates in the MENA region are still among the highest in the world. Education is crucial if we are truly to start addressing this epidemic.

In the UAE, the virus is most prevalent in Abu Dhabi and least common in Ajman.

Looming hepatitis C crisis in Canada

When Cynthia was about to turn 40 earlier this year, her doctor ordered a battery of tests – including a blood test for hepatitis C. Cynthia, a Canadian resident, said she was shocked when the results confirmed that she had antibodies for hepatitis C.

Cynthia has no idea how she contracted the virus: She has never received a blood transfusion or medical attention in a foreign country, and never experimented with injection drugs, she said. Doctors suggested there was a slim chance she was infected via dental work or sharing a toothbrush. According to her, if she can get this, anyone can.

Hepatitis C is sometimes seen as a drug addict’s disease, but recent data suggest the largest group of Canadians carrying the virus consists of average adults born between 1945 and 1975. Last year, evidence of high infection rates among boomers prompted the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to recommend that all adults born between 1945 and 1965 be tested and treated for hepatitis C before this latent disease becomes a health crisis.

That testing guideline was supported by the Canadian Liver Foundation, which expanded the birth year to 1975 “due to the prevalence of hepatitis C in the immigrant population,”. 

Indonesia's Hepatitis C time bomb is ticking

In 2007, Indonesia's Health Ministry estimated that more than 7 million Indonesians -- more than 2 percent of the country's population -- had hepatitis C. Approximately half of hepatitis C-infected people could progress to chronic liver disease, and one-third could develop liver fibrosis or cancer. HIV-infected people who injected drugs were particularly vulnerable, since HIV tripled the risk for liver disease and death.

Injection drug users often could not access harm reduction strategies to prevent hepatitis C and recommended hepatitis C treatment. A research with drug-using communities in eight Indonesian cities revealed that nearly two-thirds of drug users received harm reduction services, but half of those accessing harm reduction services never received hepatitis C testing and treatment information.

To determine proper hepatitis C treatment, patients needed diagnostic tests that cost up to $580, three times the average Indonesian's monthly salary. Each of the six hepatitis C genotypes responded differently to treatment. Many local and international advocates recently demanded that multinational pharma companies cut prices to increase access to hepatitis C treatment.

The Indonesian government provided some public support for hepatitis C treatment through insurance programs for government employees, employees of some businesses, and low-income individuals. However, most Indonesians either did not know about available programs or did not qualify for these programs.

Indonesian government recently announced that National Health Insurance would cover hepatitis C treatment beginning in 2014. The Health Ministry established a national program focused on hepatitis C in 2011 and would begin to implement a national plan sometime between 2015 and 2019.

HCV is spread (transmitted) most efficiently through exposure to infected blood. The most common route of transmission is needles shared among users of illicit drugs. Accidental needle-sticks in health care workers also have transmitted the virus. Some people acquire the HCV infection from transfusions of blood or blood products. HCV infection also can be passed from mother to unborn child. A small number of cases are transmitted through sexual intercourse. The risk of transmission of HCV from an infected individual to a non-infected spouse or sexual partner without the use of condoms over a lifetime has been estimated to be between 1% and 4%. Finally, there have been some outbreaks of HCV when instruments exposed to infected blood have been re-used without appropriate cleaning between patients.

Transmission of HCV can be prevented in several ways.

Prevention programs can be aimed at avoiding needle sharing among drug addicts. Needle exchange programs and educational interventions have reduced transmission of HCV infection. However, the population of drug addicts is a difficult population to reach, and rates of HCV remain high among addicts.
Among healthcare workers, safe needle-usage techniques have been developed to reduce accidental needle-sticks. Newer syringes have self-capping needle systems that avoid the need to manually replace a cap after drawing blood and reduce the risk of needle-sticks. There is no clear way to prevent transmission of the HCV from mother to child. Persons with multiple sexual partners should use barrier precautions such as condoms to limit the risk of HCV as well as other sexually-transmitted diseases. Screening tests for blood products can almost eliminated the risk of transmission of HCV infection through transfusion. People with HCV infection should not share razors or toothbrushes with others. It is critical that physicians and clinics follow manufacturer's directions for sterilizing/cleaning instruments and that disposable instruments be discarded properly.

Through both prevention and other education campaign Indonesia can help reduce the impact of hepatitis C on its population.