W.C. Wilson

[bhjelle at unm.edu]

In article <199501171739.AA05743 at wugate.wustl.edu>,
 <saboteur at BORCIM.WUSTL.EDU> wrote:
>>Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report from Oct. 1994
>>
>>Total Reported cases in the US for 1993
>>     AIDS           103,691
>>     Hepatitis, Non-A, Non-B      4,786
>>
>>     Chickenpox          134,722
>>     Syphilis            101,259
>>     Gonorrhea      439,673
>>
>
>Good point. What your data shows is that NANB is spreading at a slower rate
>than HIV. The spread of HCV has been drastically slowed by blood
>donor screening for the past few years. If your post was in reply to my
>previous post, you do not address the total number of HIV-infected people
>vs. those infected by HCV, which indeed are comparable in this country. Just
>wanted to point that out.  

This is pretty misleading. The fraction
of total HCV infection due to receipt of blood
products was never more than a few percent
of the total. Great majority is a combination
of IDU transmission and incident community-
acquired infection. See Miriam Alter's
publications for reference. Community-
acquired routes other than IDU have always
been poorly understood and elusive.
Now there is some recent data showing higher
rate of sexual transmission than previously
appreciated. Correlates with length of
a sexual relationship and viral load by PCR.

As for the reported cases of "non-A, non-B
hepatitis" as a measure of incident HCV
infection, forget it. Tiny fraction get
reported, and it is not even certain that
all seroconverters even get acute hepatitis,
much less symptomatic.

Brian