Nearly four million Americans have Hepatitis C, a potentially deadly virus that infects the liver.
"Many of them are Baby Boomers who have no idea how they contracted the disease," says Dr. Melissa Palmer, a leading liver specialist who treats hepatitis C in her offices on Long Island. "In many cases hepatitis C remains silent and undiagnosed for decades. Many people getting sick today contracted the virus from the mid-'60s through the '80s, when infection rates skyrocketed."
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the number of deaths due to hepatitis C is expected to triple within the next 10 years. But the virus can be treated. "We can successfully treat more cases of hepatitis C than ever before," says Dr. Palmer. "In the last five years treatments have improved so we can now eradicate the virus more than 50 percent of the time."
Source: Genetic Engineering News via Newstream.com, October 26, 2005
Nearly four million Americans have Hepatitis C, a potentially deadly virus that infects the liver.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the number of deaths due to hepatitis C is expected to triple within the next 10 years. But the virus can be treated. "We can successfully treat more cases of hepatitis C than ever before," says Dr. Palmer. "In the last five years treatments have improved so we can now eradicate the virus more than 50 percent of the time."
Source: Genetic Engineering News via Newstream.com, October 26, 2005