Phil Brennan, NewsMax.com
Tuesday, Aug. 14, 2001

Between 1993 and 1998 AIDS deaths had dropped to just below 18,000 a year from a high of more than 45,000. During the same period, hepatitis C infections skyrocketed by a dizzying 260 percent - a rate of increase that by 2010 will leapfrog it past AIDS as a killer.

Capable of lurking undetected for as long as 20 years before symptoms such as jaundice, fatigue and abdominal pain appear, hepatitis C, by the time it has been diagnosed, is already in its chronic stage, when serious liver scarring and the threat of cancer and death exist.

"For now we don't have a way of predicting who will wind up in that shape," Richard Manch, a liver specialist at Good Samaritan Regional Medical Center in Phoenix, told Forbes magazine.

Writing in the Aug. 20 issue, Rob Wherry reported that experts do, however, predict that the number of victims getting treatment for hepatitis C - 200,000 - could double to 400,000 in a mere four years.

The disease is contracted through intravenous drug use or blood transfusions. The only drug capable of treating it - Schering-Plough's Rebetron - costs a staggering $18,000 annually.

According to Forbes, the drug is a combination of ribavirin and the anti-cancer drug interferon, which when given separately have little effect, but in combination help prevent hepatitis C from spreading by causing it to make defective virus cells. Rebetron works in 40 percent of hepatitis C infections but carries the risk of side effects such as depression and anemia.

"Like other plagues, hep-C has stymied scientists," Wherry wrote, adding that experts have been unable to grow it in the lab. Moreover, it is tough to prevent it from replicating itself While so-called protease inhibitors shut down AIDS enzymes by locking onto readily available toeholds, hepatitis-C's protease is smooth and drugs slide off it like water off a duck's back.

According to Forbes, a new family of drugs promises to boost cure rates from 40 percent to 56 percent (a "cure" being defined as six months virus-free), and some doctors hope to wipe it out entirely. Unlike HIV, which lives in the nucleus of the cell, hepatitis C lives outside the nucleus. That easier access gives the new family of drugs an opportunity to rid the body of hepatitis C, while HIV drugs can at best suppress the virus.

A big question is why AIDS gets many times the attention of this deadly disease.

A product that might interest you:
FREE - 4 Months to NewsMax.com`s Magazine. Check It Out - Get four FREE
Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
Health Issues