Campaign aims to find possible hepatitis victims

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. Middleage, ``mainstream Americans'' who even once
tried intravenous drugs decades ago or whose sex partners did might be
infected with hepatitis and not know it.

A national campaign starting in February will urge drugusing baby boomers
and people in highrisk groups to be tested for the sneaky virus, which
lurks in the body without symptoms for decades while crippling the liver.

``They played around with drugs once or twice. They don't think of
themselves as drug users atrisk (for hepatitis). But they may have serious
liver disease,'' said Dr. Eugene Schiff, a University of Miami liver expert
who helped unveil the campaign Tuesday in Washington, D.C.

The campaign also will target gay men, people who lived in unsanitary
conditions, Latins and African Americans, who have higher than average rates
of hepatitis. Infected people can unknowingly pass the virus.

The educational effort will be the first major war on hepatitis, which
infects about 5.25 million Americans and kills 15,000 a year.

The death toll is expected to triple within 20 years as millions of hidden
cases emerge, according to the campaign organizers, the American Liver and
American Digestive Health foundations.

Of about 4 million hepatitis C cases, 300,000 came from contaminated blood
transfusions made before a screening test made the blood supply safe in
1992.

Hepatitis A and E, which are less severe and last only weeks, spread through
feces via unsanitary conditions. About 180,000 Americans a year get it.

The serious and chronic types, hepatitis B and C, are passed via blood and
bodily fluids, mainly through unprotected sex and dirty needles. Type D
worsens type B.

Type B can be prevented with a vaccine and can be cured with interferon.
Type C has no vaccine and resists treatment, although liver transplants can
extend life for years. New drugs are being tested.

The only symptoms of hepatitis are common and found in many illnesses:
fatigue, nausea, loss of appetite. It can be detected by blood tests.

``There are many people out there who are infected but don't know it. How do
we track them down without starting a major panic?'' said Dr. Leonard Seeff
of the University of Virginia, a liver foundation adviser.

A Miami woman got hepatitis C from a blood transfusion in 1974 but had no
symptoms when doctors recently found the infection by chance, Schiff said.
By then, the hepatitis had caused liver cancer and cirrhosis.

The campaign's TV spots and publicity will urge everyone to get tested who
had a transfusion before 1992, who used IV drugs even once or who might have
had a drug user for a sex partner.

In minority areas, the campaign will include grassroots measures, such as
programs at community centers, hoping to overcome cultural and language
barriers.