Hepatitis C deaths fall, PHE says

Public Health England (PHE) has published its annual hepatitis C report for 2016, showing deaths from the disease in the UK have fallen.

The latest figures from the study have suggested that treatment rates increased by around 40 per cent in 2015, up to 8,970 from an average of 6,400 in previous years. PHE has claimed the improvement is likely to be due to better access to new treatment, which offer improved cure rates, fewer side effects and are easy to administer.

Data shows around 160,000 people in England are living with hepatitis C, a disease which causes inflammation of the liver. However, many people are unaware they have the condition since the liver is often still able to operate even when damaged.

Dr Helen Harris, hepatitis C expert at PHE, who led the publication of the report, said: “It’s early days, but with more patients being tested and improved treatments, there is genuine hope that we are seeing an impact on the number of deaths from hepatitis C related end-stage liver disease and liver cancer. However it’s not enough to just treat the liver damage caused by the virus, we also need to prevent infection in the first place, and continue to highlight the importance of prevention and testing.

“Many people may be unaware of their infection because they have only mild or no symptoms. If we don’t do more to identify these people, they are likely to remain unaware of their risk until they present with advanced disease. Health care professionals in primary care and other settings should therefore consider hepatitis C testing in people who may be at risk. Those most at risk are people who have ever injected drugs, had a blood transfusion before the introduction of screening of the blood supply in 1991, and people born or brought up in countries with a high prevalence of hepatitis C.”