State Takes Measures to X-Out Hep C
by Matthew Keogh, Medford Transcript
5/18/2006
Jenny Nathans is excited. Despite the tough economic climate, her organization is about to receive more than $100,000 to help abate a growing disease in Massachusetts.
The coordinator for the Massachusetts Health Association Hepatitis C Coalition, Nathans is enthused that the House Ways and Means Committee has given the money to the state Department of Health to combat the disease.
However, Nathans and others in her field are still looking for an additional $2 million to help health officials combat the "epidemic" that strikes at least 10,000 Massachusetts residents each year.
"It's become an epidemic, not only in Massachusetts, but all across the country, and figures show that at least 70 percent of those infected don't even know they have it," said Nathans, who helped lobby for the amendment authored by Rep. Carl Sciortino, D-Medford.
The $100,000 in funding that resulted from Sciortino's amendment will be used to increase funds for educational programs about hepatitis C as well as help open two desperately needed publicly run testing sites. Right now there are only eight public testing sites in Massachusetts, none of which are in the western part of the state.
Even so, Nathans said there is still a long way to go before state health officials can make much of a dent in hepatitis C, reported cases of which have increased 663 percent since 1994.
But even as the numbers of infected residents soared, visibility of the disease remained low, Sciortino said. For Sciortino and others though, hepatitis C has simply become too large a problem to ignore.
"The reasons I decided to take this on is that I have a background in public health as well as a family member that has been infected with hepatitis C," said Sciortino. "It has a large stigma associated with it because people think it commonly affects people like drug users, but at the same time there's been a huge jump in the number of people infected."
Sciortino said in 2003, more than 12,000 Massachusetts residents died from hepatitis C complications and by the end of this decade it's estimated that more people will die from this disease than AIDS.
Yet, even as the disease continues to take its toll, preventative measures seem to be taking a back seat, and widespread cuts in 2003 greatly limited the amount of services available to hepatitis C sufferers. More than a dozen case management centers, with employees dedicated to working with hepatitis C patients, were closed, and education programs were drastically cut back.
Sciortino said although it's still unclear if the increased funding will help reopen these facilities, it's important to ensure residents continue to have access to testing.
"If people have to drive three hours to get tested, they just won't," he said, adding that preventative measures will limit the need for major medical procedures associated with the disease down the road.
"We will hear from those people when they come back to the state for other things like liver failure," Sciortino said. "If you combat the problem now, you will save the state a lot of money, because the treatment costs the state much less than it does when someone goes on disability because the pain is too much."
Although Nathans said there is no vaccine for hepatitis C, as there is for hepatitis A and B, she said there are options available for those infected, but perhaps the best way funds can be spent is for prevention.
"I think that the real battle has been the lack of public awareness," Sciortino said, adding he's working on additional legislation to make needles available over the counter, a move to limit the transmission of hepatitis C and other diseases among intravenous drug users.
For now though, Sciortino said he is hopeful the extra funds will enable the state Department of Health to possibly reopen some of those case management centers as well as ramp up testing and create new programs to educate the public on a disease about which little is still known.
"What we really need to be able to do is track this disease and see just where we need to combat it most," Nathans said. "Right now, we don't even have a picture of this disease."
Even if the increased funds don't wipe out hepatitis C from Massachusetts, Nathans said at least the extra cash will make the picture a little clearer.
"People need to know that you can get this disease through things like needle sharing, razor sharing, or any instance where blood is transferred," Nathans said. "If you share needles, if you had a blood transfusion before 1992, or if you have a parent that has it, you should get tested."
Get the facts on hepatitis C
Hepatitis is "inflammation of the liver" and hepatitis C is a virus that can cause the liver to become inflamed.
The hepatitis C virus is found in the blood and liver of persons who have the infection. While there are vaccines for hepatitis A and B, there is no vaccine for hepatitis C.
Hepatitis C can be spread from person to person by sharing needles, unprotected sexual intercourse, exposure to cuts and sores and the sharing of items that could contain blood.
Although there is no vaccine for hepatitis C, there are medications available to greatly limit and in some cases, make the virus completely undetectable.
Although some people will be free of hepatitis C within a few months of their initial diagnosis, most will have to live with the disease for the rest of their lives and take appropriate measures to ensure others are not infected.
--Compiled from the Massachusetts Department of Public Health Web site.