INDIA FACES HCV “SILENT EPIDEMIC”: DR. SUBRAT ACHARYA

Bhubaneswar

With around 12 million people chronically infected with the Hepatitis
C virus (HCV), India faces a “silent epidemic” spectre as the infected
people remained unaware of their chronic carrier status infecting
others for decades, one of the country’s foremost gastroenterologists
said here.
The Hepatitis C virus, which claims around 5,00,000 lives in India
annually, causes liver failure, chronic liver diseases and cancer, Dr.
Subrat Kumar Acharya, Professor and Head of the department of
gastroenterology at AIIMS, New Delhi, said at a seminar on Hepatitis C
virus on Sunday.
“Following initial infection, approximately 80 per cent of the people
do not exhibit any symptoms while the acutely symptomatic may suffer
from fever, fatigue, decreased appetite, nausea, vomiting, abdominal
pain and jaundice,” he said.
The seminar was organized jointly by the IMS and Sum Hospital and
Kalinga Gastro Foundation to mark the first meeting of the
International Coalition of Hepatology Education Providers (IC-HEP) in
Odisha. The IC-HEP aimed at providing healthcare providers with the
most current information and clinically meaningful education on
hepatitis with special focus on chronic Hepatitis C.
Dr. Acharya said that 130 to 150 million people worldwide had chronic
HCV infection a significant number of whom develop liver cirrhosis
(scarring of the liver) or liver cancer subsequently.
HCV infection, he said, could be diagnosed with a simple blood test
for anti HCV antibody and subsequently a nucleic acid test for HCV RNA
was needed to confirm chronic HCV infection.
Pointing out that currently there was no vaccine for Hepatitis C due
to the variability of the virus, multiple types and subtypes and rapid
emergence of quasi-species, Dr. Acharya said antiviral medicines did
cure HCV infection while reducing the development of liver cancer and
cirrhosis.
Dr. Manoj Sahu, Head of the department of gastroenterology at IMS and
Sum Hospital, said the HCV infection could be prevented if the people
understood the risk of the transmission. The infection could be
treated with effective medicine to prevent the transmission, he said.
The risk factors for transmission of this virus were through drug
use, unsafe injection practices, blood transfusion from unscreened
donors, the sexual route, perinatal exposure from infected mother to
the newborn and health care exposure in the hospital, he said.

Prominent Gastroenterologists, hepatologists, physicians, surgeons,
pediatricians, gynaecologists, pathologists and radiologists from
different parts of the state attended the meeting.