Disease
Hepatitis C is a liver disease. Hepatitis (pronounced HEP-ah-TY-tis) makes your liver swell and stops it from working right. Most people with hepatitis do not have symptoms. You need a healthy liver. The liver does many things to keep you alive. The liver fights infections and stops bleeding. It removes drugs and other poisons from your blood. The liver also stores energy for when you need it. The Disease is spread primarily through contact with infected blood; less commonly, through sexual contact and childbirth.
People at Risk
Injection drug users, people who have sex with an infected person, people who have multiple sex partners, health care workers, infants born to infected women, hemodialysis patients, and people who received a transfusion of blood or blood products before July 1992 or clotting factors made before 1987.
Prevention
There is no vaccine for hepatitis C; the only way to prevent the disease is to reduce the risk of exposure to the virus. This means avoiding behaviors like sharing drug needles or sharing personal items like toothbrushes, razors, and nail clippers with an infected person.
Treatment
Chronic hepatitis C: drug treatment with peginterferon alone or combination treatment with peginterferon and the drug ribavirin.
Acute hepatitis C: treatment is recommended if it does not resolve within 2 to 3 months
