14 million EU citizens living with Hepatitis C; low figures for Malta

There are currently around 13.3 million Europeans living with hepatitis B and 14 million living with hepatitis C, MEP Miriam Dalli pointed out in a question posed to the European Parliament.

“Approximately 120,000 people in Europe every year die because of these diseases.”

In Malta, the number of cases did not seem high in 2013, with 3.3 people per 100,000 being reported as having been infected that year. The number in other states is considerably higher such as in the UK, where the number stood at 21.5 per 100,000 people (nearly 14,000 in total that year).

Read more......

6 Things People With Hepatitis C Wish You Knew

You might know someone living with hepatitis C and not even realize it. 

Having a chronic hepatitis C infection can affect a person’s day-to-day life more than you may expect. Hepatitis C is the most common blood-borne virus in the United States, with more than 3 million people infected, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). But even with such high numbers, patients feel there’s a lot of misinformation about this infectious disease.

Here’s what people diagnosed with hepatitis C want you to know about their illness:

1. Hepatitis C is a serious disease. “You can’t put your head in the ground,” says Joe Benko, 64, an Army veteran from Allentown, Pennsylvania, who learned he had the virus while donating blood. “If you have hepatitis C, you have to be proactive and approach it. That’s the only way to get rid of it."

Read more...