Illicit fentanyl use linked to increase risk of hepatitis c among people who use drugs

Findings reveal shortfalls in hepatitis C elimination efforts in the United States and Mexico
UC San Diego Today July 30,2024

An international team of researchers from University of California San Diego and el Colegio de la Frontera Norte in Mexico have revealed a significant association between the use of illicit fentanyl and the transmission of hepatitis C virus (HCV) among people who inject drugs in San Diego, California and Tijuana, Mexico. The findings, published in Clinical Infectious Diseases, suggest that illicit fentanyl use could be driving recent increases in HCV incidence.
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Our study provides the first evidence that illicit fentanyl use is linked to an increased risk of acquiring hepatitis C infection, which disproportionately affects people who inject drugs," said Steffanie Strathdee, Ph.D., senior author and professor of medicine at UC San Diego School of Medicine. "This underscores the importance of making point-of-care HCV viral load testing more widely available in the U.S., so those needing treatment can access it immediately."

HCV is one of several types of hepatitis, inflammation of the liver most often caused by a viral infection. HCV is most often transmitted through blood, which means that people who inject drugs are at particularly high risk of acquiring the disease.

Once acquired, the virus is easy to transmit unknowingly, because symptoms of HCV often don’t emerge until months or years after the initial infection. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), about half of people with HCV do not know they have it.
HCV prevalence is also on the rise in recent years; according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the number of reported cases of acute hepatitis C has doubled since 2014 and, during 2021, increased by 5 percent from 2020.
The new study, which followed a cohort of 398 people who inject drugs over two years, found that illicit fentanyl use was associated with a 64 percent increased risk of acquiring HCV.
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