The virus has infected not only people who are at the lower end of the social and economic scale, but also plenty of those in the middle class. While IV drug use, past and present, is the leading cause of HCV infection, other modes of transmission are blood transfusions, tattooing, body piercing, acupuncture, health-care workers accidentally pricked by a contaminated needle, manicures, pedicures, sharing razors or toothbrushes, and snorting drugs. Low risks occur in unprotected, risky sexual contact, in childbirth and from breast-feeding, if there is blood to blood contact. No matter how low the risk is, the possibility is there. I also have read that HCV has been found in stored blood from the forties.
Some people go even further implying the possibility of chemical warfare, a conspiracy.
I decided after a lot of pondering to tell my liver specialist at my first visit that I had used IV drugs in the past. I assumed revealing this fact would benefit my care and their research. I didn't have to reveal my sordid history, since the virus was possibly caused by the injection of gamma globulin that I had received, after I contracted hepatitis B, two years prior to any drug use. That makes it acceptable in the eyes of the society. I am no less deserving of medical care as anyone else.