That was an eye-opener that got my attention at a review I recently attended of the disease. This translates roughly to between 15,000 and 50,000 infected individuals right here in Orange County. Other things we know about hepatitis C have significant public health implications.
Infection occurs most commonly through contaminated blood products and needles.
This suggests that we need to concentrate our prevention and surveillance efforts on intravenous drug abusers and on individuals who received infusions of blood products prior to the institution of routine screening of blood products. One of the most compelling reasons to intensify our efforts at prevention and early identification derives from the fact that the natural course of the disease can be altered favorably by refraining from the use of tobacco and alcohol. This fact creates, I believe, a moral imperative to organize community efforts to identify infected individuals and ensure they are adequately apprised of behavioral alternatives that can alter the trajectory of their disease. While we have successfully secured our supply of blood products and research progresses on complicated treatment regimens, other key components of the public health response are lagging. We simply have no organized and systematic community-wide efforts aimed at surveillance, prevention, early identification and counseling among individuals at risk.