Hepatitis C is a disease of the liver caused by the hepatitis C virus (HCV), currently there is not a vaccine to help prevent infection. A person contracts HCV through direct contact with the blood of an infected person. Many people experience no symptoms of Hepatitis C, and may be unaware of the infection. Tests may detect HVC in the blood one or two weeks after infection from the virus.

There is a series of blood tests to determine if a person is infected with the HVC virus. The... more

Here is a scary thought; if you are hospitalized in the U.S. or Europe or you work in a hospital you have an estimated 5-10% chance of developing an infection caused by your hospital stay. Patients are more susceptible to acquiring infection if they happen to be in one of the extremes of life, infancy or old age, or have an impaired immune status, an underlying disease, or suffer from malnutrition. The main infections contracted from the hospital environment are urinary tract infections usually associated with an indwelling bladder catheter,... more

Scientists at Rockefeller University are trying to understand a process of superinfection exclusion and believe that finding a way to recreate it therapeutically could create new avenues of treatment for Hepatitis C. They tried to infect cells with variants of the hepatitis C virus that had already been infected with a hepatitis C virus they were able to grow in a cell culture. They were unable to infect these grown cells with the variants until they introduced a drug that was capable of inhibiting virus replication. Hepatitis C virus is spread... more