US baby boomers urged to get tested for hepatitis C

Baby boomers should take themselves to a physician to be tested for hepatitis C ? so says the US government, which this week has recommended that anyone born between 1945 and 1965 should get tested for the virus.

Hepatitis C kills more Americans each year than AIDS. Transmitted by blood, it is the leading cause of liver transplants. An estimated 3.2 million Americans are thought to be infected ? three quarters of them baby boomers, who are largely at risk of having caught the virus through drug use or receiving a blood transfusion before widespread screening for the virus became available in 1992.

By taking a one-off blood test, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention predicts that 800,000 new infections will be identified and 120,000 hepatitis-related deaths avoided in this age group.

Most people with the virus show no symptoms, but around 15,000 people die of it each year ? a large percentage through scarring of the liver. A relatively new three-drug treatment can cure around 79 per cent of people with the disease. A spokesperson for the CDC said that the cost of detecting and treating this group of people would be similar to that of testing and treating high cholesterol.

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