Screening baby boomers for hepatitis C may uncover millions of infections and prevent 59,000 deaths among aging Americans, many of whom have no idea they may carry the liver-damaging virus, researchers said, Bloomberg News reports.
Expanded testing would identify people who may have contracted hepatitis C decades ago and never developed symptoms, allowing them to spread the virus, said lead author Lisa McGarry, director of health economics at Ingenix Life Sciences, a unit of UnitedHealth Group Inc.
The study, presented at the Digestive Disease Week meeting in Chicago, was funded by Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc. (VRTX), which is awaiting U.S. approval of its hepatitis C drug.
New Haven drug developer Achillion Pharmaceuticals also is in clinical trials of a treatment for hepatitis C.
The study was done to quantify the benefits of broader screening, McGarry said in a telephone interview.
The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force ruled against routine screening for hepatitis C in 2004, saying infection rates are low and most people with the virus don’t develop serious health problems. Screening is now done for those at high-risk, which identifies less than 5 percent of infected people each year, McGarry said.
