Baby boomers should be tested for hepatitis C because of the inherent risk factors of the disease.
Hepatitis C can damage the liver, often without being symptomatic.
The virus is the leading cause of liver cancer and liver transplants and potentially 800,000 people do not know that they have it.
And a recent analysis by the CDC found that more people in the U.S. die from hepatitis C than HIV/AIDS.
The current guidelines call for testing when someone has known risk factors.
Such as? Blood transfusions or organ transplants before 1992 (when effective screening for hepatitis C virus became common), or recreational injection of drugs — even once — could have led to a liver infection that has gone undetected all these years.
just being a baby boomer is risk factor enough, the CDC has concluded. “Baby boomers are five times more likely than other American adults to be infected with the disease,” the CDC says. “In fact, more than 75 percent of American adults with hepatitis C are baby boomers.” Infection rates were highest in the ’70s and ’80s.
Hepatitis C is highly treatable so being tested is important.
