HOUSTON (KTRK) -- More than three million Americans have Hepatitis C, which can destroy the liver. You can get Hepatitis C from a blood transfusion before 1992 because of contaminated needles, and sexual transmission. There was no cure, but now, there is hope with two new drugs that can cure it..
Baylor's Dr. John Vierling offered a new study with a drug called INCIVEK. This time it worked.
"I've been cured now almost three years," Looser said.
INCIVEK, the drug she took, is one of two new drugs for Hepatitis C.
"These new drugs are the forefront of advances; those advances continue," Dr. Vierling said. Continue Reading........
Modes of Transmission
(http://www.cdc.gov/hepatitis/HCV/HCVfaq.htm#section2 )
Hepatitis C virus is transmitted primarily through large or repeated percutaneous (i.e., passage through the skin) exposures to infectious blood, such as
•Injection drug use (currently the most common means of HCV transmission in the United States)
•Receipt of donated blood, blood products, and organs (once a common means of transmission but now rare in the United States since blood screening became available in 1992)
•Needlestick injuries in healthcare settings
•Birth to an HCV-infected mother
HCV can also be spread infrequently through
•Sex with an HCV-infected person (an inefficient means of transmission)
•Sharing personal items contaminated with infectious blood, such as razors or toothbrushes (also inefficient vectors of transmission)
•Inappropriate infection control during surgery or other invasive healthcare procedure, such as injections (usually recognized in the context of outbreaks) or dialysis
Incubation Period
For the ~20% of newly infected persons who develop symptoms of acute hepatitis C, the time period from exposure to onset of symptoms is generally 4–12 weeks with a range of 2 weeks to 6 months. k
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