Last Christmas, my brother in law was plagued with Hepatitis A. He missed our Christmas dinner, but miraculously, he became so much better that he was able to join us for New Year’s Eve dinner. By now, he is no longer on medication but his utensils are still being separated from ours. We still take precautions.
My daughter is immunized at birth with Hepatitis B. She has already completed the three required shots.
And now there is Hepatitis C? I heard over the news that it is really dangerous especially among those who are HIV positive. How does one contract Hepa C? What are its symptoms?
According to the news today, it is not later in the stages that Hepa C is detected, or at least its symptoms detectable.
Wikipedia says that Hepa C is contracted through blood to blood contact. Here are further information about Hepa C from Wiki.
“Acute hepatitis C refers to the first 6 months after infection with HCV. Between 60% to 70% of people infected develop no symptoms during the acute phase. In the minority of patients who experience acute phase symptoms, they are generally mild and nonspecific, and rarely lead to a specific diagnosis of hepatitis C. Symptoms of acute hepatitis C infection include decreased appetite, fatigue, abdominal pain, jaundice, itching, and flu-like symptoms.
The hepatitis C virus is usually detectable in the blood within one to three weeks after infection by PCR, and antibodies to the virus are generally detectable within 3 to 15 weeks. Spontaneous viral clearance rates are highly variable and between 10–60%[2] of persons infected with HCV clear the virus from their bodies during the acute phase as shown by normalization in liver enzymes (alanine transaminase (ALT) & aspartate transaminase (AST)), and plasma HCV-RNA clearance (this is known as spontaneous viral clearance). However, persistent infections are common[3] and most patients develop chronic hepatitis C, i.e., infection lasting more than 6 months.[4][5][6]
Previous practice was to not treat acute infections to see if the person would spontaneously clear; recent studies have shown that treatment during the acute phase of genotype 1 infections has a greater than 90% success rate with half the treatment time required for chronic infections.[7]”
And now I know that there are other types of Hepa, Hepa D and Hepa E.