Hepatitis Booklet Updated

posted: 07/10/2010

NAM have produced a new edition of their Hepatitis & HIV booklet. It is for people with HIV who want to know more about hepatitis A, B and C. Hepatitis is a viruses that can damage the liver and make you very unwell.

The booklet tells you how to avoid becoming infected with hepatitis, and how they different strains of hepatitis virus are treated.
 

Read online or download booklet

You can read it online page by page, or download the full booklet 
 

New Treatments Pipeline

posted: 10/09/2010

If you want to know about all the future treatments, tests, and prevention for HIV, hepatitis, and TB, the Treatment Action Group (TAG) have produced a new guide. It deals with

• future HIV antiretroviral treatments
• future ways of diagnosing HIV
• future HIV antiretroviral treatments for babies, children and young people
• future immune-based therapies and preventive technologies - like vaccines and pre-exposure prophylaxis (which means treatment to prevent HIV infection)
• future hepatitis B treatments
• future hepatitis C treatments
• future diagnosis, treatments and vaccines for tuberculosis (TB)

It's not an easy booklet to read, but there are 150 pages of information about new HIV treatments in the development 'pipeline.' That is a lot of new developments that should continue to steadily improve the quality and length of life people with HIV can expect.

TAG 2010 Pipeline Report from i-BASE

Treatment Action Group (TAG)

More Hepatitis C and HIV

posted: 22/06/2010

Hepatitis C in the UK: 2009 report is the latest update on the hep C virus from the Health Protection Agency. Figures from this yearly report show that laboratory reporting of newly diagnosed hepatitis C infections in England increased in 2008 by 6% compared to 2007, with 8,196 new cases reported in 2008.

Hepatitis C is rising among among people living with HIV, particularly gay men. Among gay men living with HIV hep C is sexually transmitted. Hep C has serious health impacts, shortens life expectancy and is harder to treat for people with HIV. Hep C treatment takes at least 6 months and has unpleasant side effects, and the success rate is much better when it is treated at an early stage. The largest number of people with and at risk of hep C howeer are injecting drug users.

Hepatitis C in the UK 2009 report and slide set
More news and information on Hepatits C and gay men living with HIV

1 in 73 Injecting Drug Users have HIV
The Health Protection Agency (HPA) has also published 'Shooting up: infections among injecting drug users in the United Kingdom 2008. An update: 2009’.

Key findings of the update include: transmission of HIV and hepatitis C infection through injecting drug use remains higher than in the late 1990s - overall, around two-fifths of injecting drug users are now infected with hepatitis C, and about one in 73 with HIV.
 
 

Hepatitis and HIV Compensation

posted: 19/04/2010

An award-winning composer who contracted HIV and hepatitis C after receiving contaminated blood on the NHS around twenty years ago has made more progress in the legal battle for compensation.
 

Andrew March, 36, applied for a Court order to overrule the government’s decision not to award compensation similar to the compensation given to people infected by blood products in the Republic of Ireland.
 

An independent inquiry last year called for an overhaul of payouts to those who got HIV and / or hepatitis in the 1970s and 1980s through transfusions with unscreened and untreated contaminated blood. Ministers refused.
 

But a High Court judge has now ruled that the Government’s approach “has been, and remains, infected by error.”
 

Inquiry recommended compensation like in Ireland
The 2009 inquiry by Lord Archer of Sandwell found that 4,670 haemophiliacs who received blood transfusions in the 1970s and 1980s were infected with hepatitis C, of whom 1,243 were also infected with HIV.
 

By May last year, almost 2,000 people had died as a result, and £142 million has been paid in compensation to victims.
 

But the inquiry recommended that British victims be compensated on the same level as in Ireland, where those who contracted hepatitis C from contaminated blood were paid on average £750,000, and people infected with HIV received up to £101,000.
 

Dodgy excuse to say no
The Government refused to pay patients a similar level of compensation as it argued that the Irish blood transfusion service was found to be at fault, which was not the case in the Britain. This interpretation is disputed both in Ireland and the UK.
 

Although the government announced increased compensation for those who got HIV, it only offered to review the hepatitis payments in another five years. It refused to assess payments in the same way as Ireland.

Judge warns against 'false optimism'

Mr Justice Holman, sitting in the High Court, said that this argument was flawed, but that it was not his role to rule on the amount that should be paid, adding that campaigners should not now have “false optimism”. “I have given no steer or indication whatsoever as to what the Government may decide upon reconsideration, and it would be a grave abuse of my role if I were to do so,” he said. “The campaign may now return to the political arena, but no one should leave this courtroom with a false optimism.”
 

The Department of Health now says it would "now consider the position".
 

Mr March said: “Having the judgement go in our favour gives us no pleasure at all. The judge’s decision proves the flawed basis on which the Government made it decision not to implement the recommended compensation scheme. The judgment now compels the Government to retake the decision lawfully and based on accurate information.”

Source

Source 2 
 

Hepatitis C and HIV Outlook

posted: 18/11/2009

We can now say that having both hepatitis C and HIV doesn’t make it any more likely people will go on to develop an AIDS illness, but people do have a worsened chance of dying early.

One third higher risk of early death

A massive study of all the studies, a ‘meta-analysis’ of over 100,000 people has produced these findings. Since effective HIV treatment became available in the mid 1990s, co-infected people still have a 35% higher risk of death compared to people with just HIV.

The investigators believe that that “the major contributor to mortality among co-infected subjects during the HAART [highly active antiretroviral therapy] era is likely to be liver disease.”

HIV treatments mean that many people with HIV can look forward to a long and healthy life. However, the outlook for people with both HIV and hepatitis C is significantly shorter than for people who only have HIV.

Indeed, liver-related disease is now an important cause of death in HIV/hepatitis co-infected patients. Although there is a lot of evidence showing that HIV accelerates the course of hepatitis C disease, there is less agreement about the effect of hepatitis C on HIV disease progression.

A team of US investigators therefore conducted a meta-analysis of 37 studies published before April 2008 to see what impact hepatitis C had on HIV disease progression and overall mortality.

Before HIV treatments experience
Ten of the studies were before effective antiretroviral therapy became available. These studies showed that before HIV treatment became available, people with both HIV and hep C were slightly less likely to face worsening HIV than people who only had HIV – not a worsening in HIV health as you might have expected.
This part of the analysis had 4413 people with both hep C and HIV and 10,213 individuals who only had HIV.

After HIV treatments
They then looked at studies after 1996 when modern HIV treatments became available. This part of the analysis had 25,319 people with both hep C and HIV and 61,697 people with only HIV. These showed that people with both hep C and HIV were 35% more likely to die early compared with people who only have HIV.

Older, on treatment, how long with hep C
People with both hep C and HIV who were older, or taking antiretroviral therapy had an especially higher risk of death.

Moreover, the longer someone has both hep C and HIV, then the greater the risk of earlier death.

End outcome
The results from the meta-analysis depend on whether you stop the clock when people get AIDS, or follow people until they die. If you stopped the clock at an AIDS diagnosis, then the results show there is no difference between people who only have HIV and those with hep C as well. But in life, none of us have time machines that can prevent our dying. Therefore we should pay more attention to the 36% higher risk of dying early with hep C.

Seven studies in the meta analysis looked at how hep C and HIV affected disease progression, whether this was defined as either an AIDS diagnosis or death. Co-infected people were 49% more likely to get AIDS or die early than people who only have HIV..

Liver disease likely killer
“The majority contributor to mortality among co-infected subjects during the HAART (highly active antiretroviral therapy) era is likely to be liver disease”, comment the investigators. “The meta-analysis did not demonstrate increased risks of developing AIDS-defining events among co-infected patients”, conclude the investigators.
 

What next?
They recommend that “future studies that attempt to examine mortality among coinfected subjects should attempt to determine the relative contributions of hepatitis C viremia as a surrogate marker for liver disease risk, whether injecting drug use is current…, and whether broader application of hepatitis C treatment positively impacts mortality in co-infected individuals.”

Source

Chen T-Y et al. Meta-analysis: increased mortality associated with hepatitis C in HIV-infected persons is unrelated to HIV disease progression. Clin Infect Dis 49 (10): 1605-1615, 2009.

photo credit and hepatitis c gene quilt panel