The life you save . . .

I’m finding the New York Times to be a good source of public health information – usually with an interesting personal angle. I would recommend a recent story by Dr. Pauline Chen, entitled From Needle Stick to Cure for Hepatitis.

Within this relatively short question and answer piece, Dr. Chen offers insight into the occupational hazards of medicine, provides a brief history and clinical overview of hepatitis C, and chronicles the inspiring story of Dr. Douglas Dieterich – a physician infected for many years with hepatitis C (known as non-A, non-B hepatitis at the time of his exposure).

In brief, Dr. Dieterich’s story is a testament to courage, persistence and altruism. But go ahead and read the story. I would only add one comment that his recurrent symptoms of jaundice and fever are a bit atypical. Most individuals do not experience any symptoms due to hepatitis C infection, and often get sick only after it is too late for effective treatment. Early screening and detection is therefore a key to addressing hepatitis C.

As stated previously, APCA has recently been awarded a grant to conduct hepatitis C screening and education. It’s humbling to know that our screening program leverages the fact that effective treatment now exists for hepatitis C – through some of the very research conducted by Dr. Dieterich himself. Many, many people owe a debt of gratitude to Dr. Dieterich for his persistence and his optimism, as he states it: “I think it’s the beginning of the end of hepatitis C, and this is one of the happiest statements I can make.”

- Doug Hirano, MPH, APCA Executive Director

Good News About Hepatitis C

I’m happy to report that APCA has received notice that it will be receiving a grant from Vertex Pharmaceuticals to conduct hepatitis C screening and education. According to the CDC, hepatitis C is “the most common chronic bloodborne infection in the United States; an estimated 3.2 million persons are chronically infected.”

Receipt of this new grant award is good news on two fronts. First, we can always use some additional financial support in these difficult economic times, and second and more importantly, identifying individuals chronically infected with the hepatitis C virus is now more important than ever – given the recent progress in treating this infection. With the advent of new hepatitis C therapies, up to 80% of infected individuals can have the virus cleared from their bloodstream indefinitely (known as “sustained virologic response”). This is essentially curing the disease.

However, like chronic hepatitis B infection, infection with the hepatitis C virus (HCV) is very often asymptomatic, and most infected individuals are unaware that they carry the virus. Finding out one’s infection status through a simple blood test is therefore critically important and can provide an HCV-infected individual a very good chance of avoiding the severe liver disease (e.g., cirrhosis and liver cancer) often association with infection.

Consequently, we are pleased to be able to initiate a hepatitis C public education and screening program targeting local Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders through this new grant program and thank Vertex Pharmaceuticals for its support.

- Doug Hirano, MPH, APCA Executive Director