HepSAY
hepatitis news and views from SA
The newly released 2022 annual report from the Burnet and Kirby institutes, Australia’s Progress Towards Hepatitis C Elimination, has a story of mixed success to tell.
Unrestricted access to direct-acting antivirals (DAAs) through public subsidy since March 2016 means there is a real opportunity to reach the official government target of eliminating hepatitis C as a public health threat in Australia by 2030.
Author James MorrisonPosted on Leave a comment on Hepatitis A: Will Understanding its replication lead to a cure? Understanding how a virus replicates inside the body is crucial for working out how it spreads, and how to stop it. A research team at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine has been looking at this process for the hepatitis A virus (HAV).
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Unlike other blood-borne viruses such as HIV and hepatitis B, the risk of a baby being infected with hepatitis C during the mother’s pregnancy or during birth is very low. Only about 5% of babies born to mothers who have hepatitis C are themselves infected by the disease.
Continue reading “Newborn Resistance”Author James MorrisonPosted on 5 Comments on Why are a small group of people born immune to hepatitis C? Virologist Connor Bamford and Professor John McLauchlan, both of the University of Glasgow, explain to the Hepatitis SA Community News how their research shows that not all people are equally vulnerable to hepatitis C.
The hepatitis C virus (HCV) infects around 1per cent of the human population and is a devastating pathogen. In most people, it silently infects the liver for decades, and can cause life-threatening inflammation, scarring and even cancer. How the virus achieves this feat has long puzzled scientists.
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Author James MorrisonPosted on Leave a comment on The Challenges of Aboriginal Prisoner Care in South Australia While only 2.3% of South Australia’s population is Indigenous, almost a quarter (22%) of people in the State’s prison system are Aboriginal. The prison population is also rife with blood-borne viruses, including hepatitis B and C—viruses which also disproportionately affect Indigenous people in the general population.
Untreated chronic health conditions (as well as hepatitis these commonly include mental illness, diabetes, heart and respiratory diseases, cancer and drug use), compounded by a prisoner’s isolation from their family and community, and a fracturing in their cultural identity and spiritual wellbeing, can be catastrophic for an Aboriginal person in the prison system.
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Author Joy SimsPosted on Leave a comment on Stigma, Treatment, Policy – Pick your topic at Hep SA’s library In this information age it is ironic that credible, reliable information can sometimes be hard to find in the tsunami of results from online searches.
Separating the reliable, evidence-based information from the “alternative” facts can be challenging.
The good news is, if you’re looking for hepatitis-related information in Australia, there’s just one place online you need to visit.
Continue reading “Stigma, Treatment, Policy – Pick your topic at Hep SA’s library”
