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Hep C Hospital Charges Up 8-Fold
Hepatitis C: The Uncounted Disease
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An analysis of the data found that the number of hospital visits in NH by patients with hepatitis C increased an average of 24% annually and total hospital charges rose from less than $2 million annually to more than $17 million annually.
N.H. Outreach 'Several Years Behind' Neighboring States
New Hampshire remains "several years behind its regional neighbors" in its hepatitis C outreach and early detection efforts. CDC estimates that the number of hepatitis C-related deaths will triple in the next decade, primarily because of infections that occurred 20 or 30 years ago. According to national statistics, 60% of new hepatitis C cases are transmitted through injection drug use. However, most of the large increase in hospital charges for patients with the disease in New Hampshire can be attributed to residents who received a blood product or transfusion before 1992, the first year that the blood supply was tested for the virus. Other states -- including Maine, Massachusetts and Rhode Island -- have launched public information campaigns to involve health care providers in identifying residents who might not be aware they are infected, while New Hampshire public health officials have focused their outreach and early detection strategies on injection drug users, HIV/AIDS clinics and prisons.
Hepatitis C is the most common blood borne infection in the United States. And it's the leading cause of liver transplants. About three million people are walking around with the virus and according to the Centers for Disease Control, most of them are completely unaware that they are infected.
The costs of hepatitis C are mounting at a ferocious rate, but the state doesn't see a need to track this disease.
New Hampshire Public Radio has found evidence of a building wave of Hepatitis C hitting the state's health care system. But unlike many other infectious disease, the state does not track Hepatitis C and does not require doctors to report when they find patients who carry it.
Hepatitis C kills about 10,000 people a year in the U-S, about the same number as die from AIDS. But unlike with AIDS, the death toll from this virus is expected to triple in the next ten years. That increase has little to do with the spread of the disease today. It is due almost entirely to infections that took place two and three decades ago. That 20 to 30 year gap is important because the types of people who got infected in the past are different from the people who get infected today.
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