Unfortunately, there’s no vaccine to prevent hepatitis C. Taking precautions is the best way to avoid this disease.
The winner of the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine 2020 was announced on Monday in Stockholm. The award was shared by three scientists who led to the discovery of the Hepatitis C virus. They are Harvey J Alter from the US National Institutes of Health, Charles M. Rice of Rockefeller University, and British scientist Michael Houghton Houghton, who is associated with the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada.
The Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet noted that Alter, Houghton and Rice made seminal discoveries that led to the identification of the Hepatitis C virus, news agency IANS reported.
With the discovery of the Hepatitis C virus, scientists were able to identify the cause of the remaining cases of chronic hepatitis and introduce blood tests and new medicines that have helped save millions of lives.
Announcing the prize, the Nobel Committee noted that the trio's work, dating back to the 1970s and 1980s, has helped saved millions of lives.
The hepatitis C virus belongs to the family of flaviviruses that also includes the West Nile virus, dengue virus and yellow fever virus.
Hepatitis C is a liver infection caused by the hepatitis C virus, which spreads through an infected person's blood or body fluids. Chronic hepatitis C, when occurs when your body doesn't clear the virus on its own after 6 months, can lead to serious health problems like liver cancer, cirrhosis and liver failure.
Many people with hepatitis C do not show symptoms. But when you have symptoms, they usually last for 2 to 12 weeks. These include clay-colored poop, dark urine, fever, fatigue, jaundice, joint pain, loss of appetite, etc.
According to the WHO estimates, over 70 million cases of hepatitis are reported globally leading to 400,000 deaths every year.
You can get Hepatitis C when blood contaminated with the virus gets into your bloodstream through contact with the blood or body fluids of an infected person. Here are some of the things that can increase your chances of exposure to the virus:
An infected mother can also pass the virus to her unborn child. So, you have a high risk of developing the disease if you were born to a mother with hepatitis C.
Unfortunately, there's no vaccine to prevent hepatitis C. Taking precautions is the best way to avoid this disease.
However, there are several medications for the treatment of chronic hepatitis C infection. The discovery of the virus by the three scientists enabled the rapid development of antiviral drugs directed at Hepatitis C, which can now be cured.
"For the first time in history, the disease can now be cured, raising hopes of eradicating hepatitis C virus from the world population," IANS quoted the Nobel Committee as saying on Monday.
A patient is considered cured if his/her blood tests negative for the virus three months after completing the treatment.
