Check Blood For Hepatitis C Advice

KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 14 (Bernama) -- Patients receiving blood transfusions especially before 1997 have been asked to check their blood to ensure they were not infected with Hepatitis C.
Director-General of Health Datuk Dr Mohd Ismail Merican said currently there was no vaccine for Hepatitis C.
He advised patients who were infected with the disease to take up treatment immediately to detect whether or not they also had liver cancer due to Hepatitis C.
"Blood screening for Hepatitis C had been carried out since 1997 and those who received the blood before the period due to accidents and other complications, should go and check their blood," he told reporters after delivering a keynote address on Hepatitis at a health seminar here Saturday.
Dr Mohd Ismail said a lot of drug addicts had Hepatitis C in their blood.
Hepatitis C is exchanged through blood infected body fluids. It can cause chronic liver cancer. There were 745 cases of Hepatitis C reported in 2004 compared to 33 cases in 1996.
He said there was an increase in the number of Hepatitis C, after blood screening was done on foreign workers in the country.
Dr Mohd Ismail said currently the best treatment for Hepatitis C in the country, although costly, was via the combination of pegylated interferon or ribavirion methods.
However he said it was far better and cheaper to prevent the disease or reduce the risk of blood transmission from nosocomial exposures such as unscreened blood tranfusions or unsafe injection practices.
He said those who felt unusually tired should also check for Hepatitis C.
Dr Mohd Ismail said Hepatitis was a big problem in the country at one time but as it was progressing to become a developed country, cases of Hepatitis A, B and C had also gone down.
The number of Hepatitis A cases had been decreasing as more people were aware of their food intake and personal hygiene, he said.
He said Hepatitis B was common in Asia but in Malaysia vaccination process had been carried out among all new-borns and high risk adults since 1986.