TAKING COCAINE LINKED TO HEPATITIS

GOVERNMENT scientists fear a sharp increase in hepatitis cases as new
research links the virus with snorting cocaine.

Researchers have shown that the risk of hepatitis C infection, which
can cause fatal liver damage, rises fivefold with cocaine use. Cocaine
is being used increasingly by affluent professionals, who consider it
a "clean" drug because it is not injected.

Now drug agencies are putting specific warnings on their leaflets. The
virus can be passed by sharing straws or rolled banknotes which
contain infected droplets of blood. Snorting cocaine causes tiny blood
vessels in the nose to burst.

The research by the National Institute of Health in Maryland,
published in the New England Journal of Medicine last week, showed
that nearly 20 per cent of people aged 40-59 with hepatitis C had used
cocaine. Dr Mary Ramsey, a Government medical adviser who works for
Britain's Public Health Laboratory Service, said: "We are really still
targeting the sexually active, those who share needles or have had a
transfusion or injection. But we would need to keep our eye on the
straw or banknote users, because we don't know how 25 to 30 per cent
of those reported infected got the infection.

"We are very concerned that we do not see another increase of the sort
we had in 1984 when around 2,000 people were infected with hepatitis
B."

A total of 400,000 people in Britain are infected with hepatitis C.