41 million Chinese believed to have hepatitis C virus: report

[Ulhas Joglekar <joglekarulhas@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

People's Daily Online

Life

UPDATED: 17:34, June 26, 2004

41 million Chinese believed to have hepatitis C virus:
report

An estimated 41 million people in China have
contracted the hepatitis C
virus, which could become a fatal "quiet epidemic,"
according to Professor
Xu Daozheng, a liver disease expert with Ditan
Hospital in Beijing.

The Chinese Ministry of Health said in a report,
issued in February, the
number of hepatitis C patient was growing. A national
epidemicological
survey covering the 1992-1995 period found 3.2 percent
of the country's
population, or 38 million people, had hepatitis C
virus.

Prof. Xu said his estimate is quite conservative, and
suggested the disease
should be included in normal medical checks, like
hepatitis B, because it
has become a serious public health issue in China.

At present, a patient with hepatitis C may look normal
and feeljust as good
as a healthy person, and the disease will not be
detected until it is too
late, the professor warned.

Unlike other types of hepatitis B, 75 percent of
people with hepatitis C
show no signs of symptoms in the early stage, said Xu.

About 15 percent of the people with hepatitis C will
develop hepatocirrhosis
and 5 percent would develop cancer if the disease is
detected in a later
stage, the expert explained.

There is still no vaccine against hepatitis C in
China, and theChina Medical
Association has called for screening the disease in
normal blood tests,
especially among high-risk groups.

China has about 20 million people with chronic viral
liver diseases out of
its 1.3 billion population, and half of the 280,000
patients of liver
disease died of liver cancer.

Source:Xinhua

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