Hepatitis C Spreading Quickly Among Those Injecting Drugs in Appalachia

Hepatitis C is spreading quickly among people injecting drugs in Appalachia, The New York Times reports. The disease can lead to liver failure, cancer and sometimes death. Injection drug use can also spread HIV through shared needles.

In May, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said prescription painkiller abuse is largely to blame for a big increase in the rate of hepatitis C among young people in rural areas of four states.

Acute hepatitis C infections more than tripled from 2007 to 2012 among young people in rural areas in Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia. About 73 percent of those hepatitis C patients said they injected drugs.

The CDC estimates that only one in every 10 cases of hepatitis C are reported, partly because people with the disease often do not have symptoms. “It’s definitely the tip of a much larger iceberg,” said John Ward, Director of the Division of Viral Hepatitis at the CDC.

More than 3 million people in the United States have hepatitis C, the CDC estimates. The disease caused more than 15,000 deaths in 2013.

People with hepatitis C often find out their insurance will not cover treatment, which can cost at least $84,000 for a 12-week course. Kentucky spent more than $50 million last year—about 7 percent of its total Medicaid budget—to provide two new hepatitis C drugs to just 861 people, according to Dr. John Langefeld, Chief Medical Officer at the state’s Department for Medicaid Services.

In order for Medicaid beneficiaries in Kentucky to qualify for treatment with the new hepatitis drugs, they need proof of advanced scarring of the liver, and cannot have used illicit drugs for at least six months.