The Unmet Challenges of Hepatitis C

Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1999. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.

The Unmet Challenges of Hepatitis C

Scientific American (10/99) Vol. 281, No. 4, P. 80
Di Bisceglie, Adrian M.; Bacon, Bruce R.

The hepatitis C virus (HCV) is present in almost 4 million Americans, about 1.8 percent of the U.S. adult population. Most of these people are unaware they have the virus--a chief cause of chronic liver disease-and many who do know are unsure of the source of their infection. In the United States alone, approximately 9,000 people die every year from HCV. No vaccine has been successfully created yet, mainly because there seems to be no way to gain immunity to infection after successfully beating the virus. Those infected must still deal with the possibility of severe liver disease, whether a vaccine works or not. Chronic HCV infection frequently has no symptoms or only vague ones that can continue for decades. Studies show that the drug ribavirin, which was approved last year by the Food and Drug Administration, has worked in 40 percent of treatments when given in conjunction with interferon. Researchers are now focusing on targeting agents that work specifically against the virus, using its genetic material as a guide.

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