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Jane Moir

The number of hepatitis C sufferers is set to catch up with the figure for hepatitis B over the next 20 years due to infection via tainted blood transfusions, doctors have warned.

  They said prospects of finding a vaccine were 'gloomy' and existing treatment for the hepatitis C virus had a low success rate, which was falling.

  While the incidence of hepatitis B was set to decline, eradication of the C virus would lag another 20 years behind, said the head of the Chinese University's hepatology department, Dr Nancy Leung Wai-yee.

  This was partly due to the high risk of developing hepatitis C once infected with the virus.

   Carriers have an 80 per cent chance of the virus becoming chronic, compared with 10 to 20 per cent for the B virus.

  'Most people contract the disease in their adulthood. It may take 20 to 30 years before it becomes active,' said Dr Leung.

  There is then a 10 to 20 per cent chance that the hepatitis will progress to liver sclerosis, and cancer.

    The median age of sufferers is between 60 and 65.

  About 10 per cent of the population is infected with hepatitis B, compared with 0.5 per cent infected with the C virus.

  Hepatitis C, which is transmitted through body fluids, can cause symptoms like influenza, vomiting and high fever.

   When the disease comes to its chronic stage, it deteriorates quickly.

   Dr Leung believes that most cases have resulted from blood transfusions.

  The Red Cross only started screening for the C virus in 1991. It would be another 20 years before a marked decline in the C virus was seen, she said, at which point the number of those infected would be close to the hepatitis B figures.

  'Hepatitis C will take some time to die down - at least another 20 years. Hepatitis C is progressive, but it's a sure loss.

  'You can vaccinate against hepatitis B, but, at the moment, treatment for hepatitis C is very unsatisfactory. People are becoming more gloomy about the outlook,' said Dr Leung.

  Formal projections had not been made, Dr Leung said, but she estimated that by the year 2010, there would be a considerable drop in hepatitis B.

  While hepatitis C would fall marginally, it would have caught up with the hepatitis B virus considerably.

 Deaths resulting from hepatitis have declined from 3.51 per million in 1990 to 1.81 per million in 1994.



Doctors gloomy about future risk from hepatitis C