symptoms

The symptoms of the disease are common to those that cause the hepatitis A and B viruses. The person who contracts any of the forms of hepatitis A, B or C experiences manifestations similar to those of a  flu . There are symptoms that appear in most cases and others that only some patients present . Some patients may even suffer from asymptomatic hepatitis C. In any case, if some of the disorders that follow are presented, it is advisable to go to the doctor. If he suspects that it may be hepatitis, he will probably do a serological test.

Common symptoms:

• Fatigue.
• Sickness.
• Fever.
• Loss of appetite
• Stomach ache.
• Diarrhea .

Symptoms that only some people have:

• Darkening of urine.
• Light colored droppings
• Yellowing of eyes and skin (jaundice).

Prevention

The only method that currently exists to prevent infection with the hepatitis C virus is to  avoid being in contact with the blood of people with the disease .

The patient must watch everything that involves a possible infection. You must use disposable syringes , use properly sterilized surgical materials and pay attention to things like a piercing or a tattoo since, although they carry a possibility of minimal contamination, if they are not properly sterilized, the instruments to make them can cause the virus to spread.  

Experts point out that personal hygiene measures , which refer to the possibility of coming into contact with blood of infected people and having safe sex , are the issues that patients must take into account more. Among the recommendations are:

• Use condoms every time they have sex.
• If you use drugs, do not share the syringe with anyone.
• Do not use the toothbrush or razor of an infected person, or anything else that may have remnants of your blood.
• Make sure that the instruments are clean, in case of getting a tattoo or piercing in any part of the body.

Types

Chronic hepatitis is divided into four phases depending on the involvement of the liver.

Genotypes of the hepatitis C virus

This pathology has different genotypes of the virus and not all people are infected by the same genotype. There are genetic differences between one genotype of the C virus and another. To date, six different ones have been described and in Spain the most common genotypes are 1, 2, 3 and 4 .

Diagnosis

To check whether someone has hepatitis or not, the doctor can perform two types of tests:

• Blood or blood test (blood is drawn with a syringe).
• By biopsy , a simple test that consists of extracting a small piece of liver to analyze the tissues under a microscope and check whether they are damaged or not. The most constant alterations are the increase of bilirubin in blood and the increase in the activity of transaminases (liver enzymes, known by their initials ALT or GPT and AST or GOT). They are between 20 and 40 times higher than normal values. These tests not only explain if you have hepatitis, but also determine what type, A, B or C and the severity of the disease.

The diagnosis is confirmed by the demonstration of antibodies against the hepatitis virus in the patients’ serum .

Treatments

At present, hepatitis C does not have any vaccine . However, treatments can completely cure patients with this condition. According to Ricardo Sola, head of Hepatology section of the Hospital del Mar in Barcelona, ​​”it is a disease that could be cured from the beginning. However, he cured very little. ”

The specialist indicates that, at the beginning, patients could only be given interferon(treatment also used in hepatitis B) or interferon and ribavirin . These drugs were used between the year 90 and 95 and managed to cure less than 10 percent of people.

In the year 2000 the first breakthrough in treatment occurred when discovering a way to apply interferon, pegylated interferon . With this formula the effectiveness of the treatment rose to about 50 percent and later, when the first drugs associated with interferon were introduced, it rose to 60 percent.

However, the great advance has come in the last two years , especially in the last, with the development of new treatments. “They have begun to use interferon-free drugs  (it is no longer necessary to administer it), drugs that no longer cause side effects and that in a very short time cure practically one hundred percent of people . The problem is that these drugs are very expensive, “adds Solá, who adds that the price of these therapies is between 25,000 and 100,000 euros. The expert indicates that of these drugs there are many families, which means that today there is a really important offer.

“At the time these medicines are administered to a patient with hepatitis C the chances of cure are enormous, even in cyanotic patients . If it is applied in the initial phases, the cure is absolute and the person forgets the virus and also the liver disease, “he specifies. “In patients who have cirrhosis, the fact of eliminating the virus improves the evolution but cirrhosis continues to exist in many cases, therefore they should be monitored and always look for the possibility that the disease does not advance or develop cancer.”

Other data

Quality of life

The quality of life of patients with hepatitis C in the initial phase is hardly affected, since sometimes even symptoms are not experienced. In the intermediate phases, fatigue is usually habitual and can limit the autonomy of the person to perform daily activities. In the advanced phase, the quality of life is very low, the disease is very progressive and often deadly.

Risk groups

When explaining who can get hepatitis C, it must be borne in mind that it depends above all on the way in which it is transmitted. Thus, the people who are most at risk are:

• Hemophiliacs
• Health personnel.
• Addicted to drugs that are injected directly into veins.
• People who had blood transfusions before 1990.

How is hepatitis C spread?

The forms of transmission are:

• Share needles to inject drugs.
• Pricking with a needle contaminated with infected blood.
• Get a tattoo or pierce any part of the body with an infected instrument.
• Having sex with an infected person, although this case occurs rarely. Instead, there are certain forms of relationship with the environment and with people that no contact risk.

Thus, hepatitis is not spread in the following ways:

• By casual contact, such as shaking hands.
• When eating foods prepared by a carrier.
• When kissing a carrier on the cheeks.
• When sharing table utensils, plates or cup.
• When visiting infected people in their homes.
• Play with an infected child.
• Sneezing or coughing