is C is transmitted when blood and possibly other body fluids of an infected person enter another person, primarily through injection drug use, exposures in health care settings, from an infected mother to her baby during birth, and occasionally through sexual exposure. Symptoms of hepatitis C may not appear for years after infection, and diagnosis must be confirmed by blood tests. However, in addition to liver inflammation and tumors, earlier signs of infection are persistent flulike symptoms, including any combination of body aches, headaches, night sweats, loss of appetite, diarrhea, fatigue, rash, nausea and mild abdominal pain. Current treatments for hepatitis C involve weekly injections of pegylated interferon for one year, plus twice daily doses of oral ribavirin. While some patients recover on their own, with their immune system attacking the virus and clearing it from the body, most do not. Scientists have not yet determined why this happens in some patients and not in others.

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Contact: David March
dmarch1@jhmi.edu
410-955-1534
Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions
9-Jun-2005

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