Why are baby boomers more likely to get hepatitis C?

If you’re part of the “baby boom” generation, born between 1945 and 1965, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has a message for you: Get tested for hepatitis C.

Hepatitis C is spread through infected blood -- and that’s why baby boomers are at such high risk. The American Gastroenterological Association (AGA) notes that baby boomers represent 82 percent of Americans with hepatitis C. Because blood wasn’t regularly tested for the virus until the 1990s, people who had blood transfusions before that may have been infected. Hepatitis C can also be transmitted through IV drug use, unprotected sex, unsterile piercings or tattoos or exposure to infected blood, and may be passed from mother to baby during birth. People can continue passing the virus for decades after they are infected.

Because hepatitis C can have no symptoms until considerable damage has been done to the liver, up to 75 percent of those infected don’t even know they have the virus. If newly infected patients have symptoms, they can be ambiguous, such as nausea, poor appetite, fatigue or dark urine. Such symptoms are easily mistaken for flu or an upset stomach, so people tend not to seek medical care.

The CDC’s recommendation for age-based screening may identify more than 800,000 more cases of chronic hepatitis C than conventional screening. Until now, physicians have been screening patients by asking them questions, such as whether they have had a blood transfusion or used IV drugs. However, this was not effective at identifying patients who needed to be tested.

Screening all baby boomers through a simple blood test enables physicians to identify and treat more people in the early stages of the disease and reduces the complications and cost of treating them for cirrhosis, liver cancer and other serious liver problems.