Hepatitis C Virus (HCV) is considered one of the major health problems that leads to critical damages to the liver.
Moreover, it causes approximately 15% to 20% cases of acute hepatitis then more than 80% of the patients will eventually end up developing chronic infection.
Therefore, we will tackle here in this post the symptoms of HCV as well as risk factors and prevention.
Hepatitis C Virus Symptoms
- The first stage is the incubation period, which lasts from 14 to a maximum of 80 days. The average is 45 days from the first exposure to the infection.
- The stage follows is the acute Hepatitis C. The short-term infection that most likely lasts for 6 months before it turns to be chronic.
- The third stage is the chronic Hepatitis C Virus; it means that it lasts longer. Therefore, it has more time to cause critical health problems like liver cancer and cirrhosis.
- Cirrhosis is another critical stage of HCV (Hepatitis C Virus). In this stage, inflammation happens as it replaces the healthy liver cells with scar tissue. It mostly takes from 20 to 30 years to happen unless the patient drinks alcohol or has HIV Virus.
Risk Factors
Many people may be at risk of this HCV as they might be sharing their healthcare tools or having multiple partners, having sex with them.
these factors might include:
- Children born to mothers infected with HCV.
- People with sexual partners who are HCV-infected.
- People who inject drugs.
- Health care workers who suffer needle-stick accidents.
Prevention
People who seek preventing this kind of virus might stick to some hygiene plans in order to live a healthy life.
these plans might include:
- Safe handling and disposal of sharp objects and waste, in order to be on the safe side.
- Prevention of being exposed to blood during sex, and use condoms if your partner has not had any problems in his/her immune system.
- Safe and appropriate use of health care injections, in order to reduce the risks of catching the infection.
Hepatitis C Virus patients if did not get the proper treatment, they will eventually develop cancer cells in their liver especially after the cirrhosis stage.