Title : Warning: There Is New Virus Spreading Linked To Hepatitis C.
link : Warning: There Is New Virus Spreading Linked To Hepatitis C.
Warning: There Is New Virus Spreading Linked To Hepatitis C.
There are millions of people in the world that depend on life saving blood transfusions for many illnesses. This blood transfusion can easily help save their lives and give them a new hope to live. Yet, with blood being accessible only through donations, it becomes necessary to get as much as possible and store it for use.
A new research has threatened this life saving technique of blood transfusion, thanks to the discovery of a virus that infects the blood with a hazardous and life threatening condition known as Hepatitis C. Moreover, this new virus can be transferred through blood to blood contact, making it extremely dangerous and making the process of blood transfusion risks.
Here is some more information about the new virus and its association with Hepatitis C.
What is Hepatitis C?
Hepatitis C is a condition that extremely influences the liver and is brought about the Hep C virus or HCV. Infection caused by this virus can be the reason for cirrhosis of the liver, which causes liver failure, liver cancer or esophageal or gastric complications.
HCV is mainly spread via blood to blood transfusions. This can happen by intravenous drug use, improperly disinfected medical needles, having sexual intercourse with a person who is affected with the HCV or by blood transfusions utilizing blood infected with the disease.
Around 150-200 million individuals are affected by Hep C virus all around the world. This virus only affects humans and chimpanzees.
Symptoms and treatments
Hepatitis C indications are: loss of appetite, fatigue, nausea, muscle and joint pains to onset of jaundice, all indicating depleting liver function. The thing is that these indications raise their head in decades in maximum people infected with the disease.
By doing a simple blood test, Hepatitis C can be diagnosed. Hepatitis C treatments are generally completed by giving oral drugs like Harvoni that cures the disease in 8-12 weeks and the patient has to take one pill a day.
In extreme cases of cirrhosis of the liver, the liver gets damaged beyond repair utilizing drugs and a surgery has to be performed to carry out a liver transplant.
New virus linked to Hep C
Pharma Company Abbott and University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) recently published a research. According to this research a new human virus was identified, called human pegivirus 2 (HPgV-2) and they also proved that it was found in the blood of patients who experienced Hepatitis C (HCV).
Eight complete strains of HPgV-2 were identified, which is the complete genetic makeup of the virus. It is the first time that someone has made such an identification. The infection that is caused by this blood borne virus is related with Hepatitis C. Yet, it is not confirmed whether the virus causes Hepatitis C or not.
This is the second pegivirus to be discovered till date, the other being the human pegivirus (HPgV).
Further information
The investigation was started when a 70 year old patient experiencing HCV caused by years of drug use and many blood transfusions to treat sickle cell anemia died in 2011 after multiple organ failure.
The team found that this new virus utilizing a technique known as next generation sequencing, which permits millions of genetic sequences from the sample to be read in parallel. 11 further new cases were identified by the team, after researching 4,200 other samples, which were high risk for HCV and HIV.
John Hackett Jr. of the UCSF-Abbott Viral Diagnostics and Discovery Center is the lead investigator of the research. He said that they have found a relation with hepatitis C. He also said: “Whether this indicates something about the route of transmission, or whether the virus persists more when HCV is present, currently we have no idea. But I wouldn’t rule out that we will find it in other settings.”
Hackett said that the team is not certain if the virus is pathogenic and causes Hepatitis C.
Source: http://healthtipsportal.com
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