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Hepatitis C Is An Infection Of The Liver Caused By The Virus

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Hepatitis C is an infection of the liver caused by the virus called Hepatitis C Virus (HCV). Hepatitis C can be acute and chronic, it is an asymptomatic disease, but a chronic infection can be life threatening and cause serious health complications in the future and eventually death. Many are unaware of this infection; the life threatening health risk involves liver damage, end- stage liver disease and hepatocellular carcinoma and even death. It 's been estimated that in the United States 2.7 million people are infected with chronic HCV, whereas the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates 3.2 million (Ditah, 2010). The infected population are primarily in their fifties and sixties, born between 1945 and 1965. One attributable cause is believed to be the transmission of the contaminated blood through organ transplants and drug injections. It is expected that compensated cirrhosis and Hepatocellular Carcinoma (HCC) will increase by over 80 percent from the year 2000 to the year 2020. Over the same period, it is estimated that decompensated cirrhosis would increase over 100 percent and that liver-related deaths would increase by 181 percent (Davis GL, Albright JE, 2003). This topic is important because since Hepatitis C is asymptomatic disease it has been estimated that approximately 50% of people living with HCV are unaware that they are infected. The World Health Organization (WHO) in 2014 estimated that more than 180 million people worldwide are infected

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