Brown Medical School

HCV 101: Prevalence of Hepatitis C Virus in the United States

June 2004

This article is part of TheBody.com's archive. Because it contains information that may no longer be accurate, this article should only be considered a historical document.

The following table is adapted from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's HCV Web-based training course "Hepatitis C: What Clinicians and Other Health Professionals Need to Know." The text is based upon the Recommendations for Prevention and Control of Hepatitis C Virus (HCV) Infection and HCV-related Chronic Disease (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. MMWR 1998; 47 [No. RR-19]).

Table 1. Estimated Average Prevalence of Hepatitis C Virus (HCV) Infection in the United States by Various Characteristics and Estimated Prevalence of Persons With These Characteristics in the Population
	HCV-Infection Prevalence		Prevalence of Persons With Characteristic, %
	%	(range, %)
Persons with hemophilia treated with products made before 1987	87	(74-90)	<0.01
Injecting drug users current history of prior use	79 No Data	(72-86) --	0.5 5
Persons with abnormal alanine aminotransferase levels	15	(10-18)	5
Chronic hemodialysis patients	10	(0-64)	0.1
Persons with multiple sex partners (lifetime) >50 10-49 2-9	9 3 2	(6-16) (3-4) (1-2)	Advertisement 4 22 52
Persons reporting a history of sexually transmitted diseases	6	(1-10)	17
Persons receiving blood transfusions before 1990	6	(5-9)	6
Infants born to infected mothers	5	(0-25)	0.1
Men who have sex with men	4	(2-18)	5
General population	1.8	(1.5-2.3)	NA*
Healthcare workers	1	(1-2)	9
Pregnant women	1	--	1.5
Military personnel	0.3	(0.2-0.4)	0.5
Volunteer blood donors	0.16	--	5
* Not applicable

This article is part of TheBody.com's archive. Because it contains information that may no longer be accurate, this article should only be considered a historical document.

This article was provided by Brown Medical School. It is a part of the publication HEPP Report.

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