Hepatitis C is an infectious disease of the liver caused by hepatitis C virus (HCV) that accounts for around one in five cases of hepatitis. It is transmitted via infected blood. The illness can take both an acute and a chronic form, and the symptoms vary from mild or nonexistent to pretty severe.
Hepatitis C is a worldwide problem. The Eastern Mediterranean region has the highest prevalence of the disease (2.3 percent) followed by European regions, which have a prevalence of 1.5 percent. Hepatitis C is found in every other region of the world too, with a prevalence ranging from 0,5 to one percent. About 71 million of people live with hepatitis C around the world
What causes hepatitis C?
Hepatitis C virus is a small virus, an RNA virus, which is exclusively hepatotropic. This means that the only tissue that it attacks is the liver tissue. After a healthy person gets in contact with infected blood, and the virus particle from the infected blood somehow enters the bloodstream, the virus travels to the liver. There, the virus attaches to a specific molecule on the surface of the liver cell, and uses it to enter the cell.
Once inside the cell, it starts replicate, damaging and destroying liver cells. The illness can take an acute or a chronic form, and it is believed that the form the disease will take depends on the subtype of the virus, but also the presence of a specific variant of a gene coding a special molecule involved in our immune response to viral infections (this molecule being called interleukin 28B).
The symptoms accompanying a hepatitis C infection include:
- Joint pain
- Jaundice
- Bleeding easily
- Getting bruises easily
- Loss of appetite
- Weight loss
- Fatigue
- Dark colored urine
- Swollen abdomen (due to excess fluid)
- Abdominal pain
- Fever
Although hepatitis C can be diagnosed in the acute form of the disease, the absence of the symptoms makes it hard for both the patient and the doctor to assume that there is an ongoing infection. Only when the virus has caused enough damage will symptoms emerge.
Other, less common ways of infection (which still need to be mentioned) include:
- Getting a tattoo or a piercing
- Sexual intercourse
- Sharing items such as razors or toothbrushes (since they can contain microscopic traces of blood able to cause the disease)
- From mother to child. It is important to note that hepatitis C cannot be transmitted via breast milk.
How can I know if I have hepatitis C?
Usually, when a pathogen attacks our body, our immune system produces molecules to fight them. These molecules are called antibodies, and there are ways to detect the levels of the antibodies in our blood. If those tests turn out positive, the next step is PCR, which means that we need to determine te presence of the nucleic acid of the virus in the blood.
This will definitely confirm an ongoing hepatitis C infection. This is done because, in the case of the acute form of an infection, the virus is absent from the organism, but the molecules that protect us from it are still around. What your doctor might do next is test the level of the damage that your liver took. This can be done by ultra sound, or by biopsy, among other methods.
How can hepatitis C be treated?
There are a lot of antivirals to help fight the disease. If the medication is taken properly, 95 percent of patients will clear the virus out of the organism. Determining the subtype of the virus by PCR is very important considering therapy, since different types of the therapy are more effective towards different types of the virus.
As for prevention, unfortunately, there is still no vaccine against this disease. It is important to never share needles and syringes, and to practice safe sex. If you plan on getting a tattoo, a piercing or some other type of body modification, be sure to do it in a safe place that does proper sterilization of the instruments.
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