U.S. hepatitis C cases dropped after decade of increases

NEW YORK — New U.S. hepatitis C infections dropped in 2022, a surprising improvement after more than a decade of steady increases, federal health officials said Wednesday.

Experts are not sure whether the 6% decline is a statistical blip or the start of a downward trend. Seeing 2023 and 2024 data, when it’s available, will help public health officials understand what’s going on, said Daniel Rayyear mond, director of policy at the National Viral Hepatitis Roundtable, an advocacy organization.

“We’ve had a decade of bad news ... I am cautiously encouraged,” he said. “You always want to hope like something like this is real, and a potential sign that the tide has turned.”

Infection rates did not occur across the board. They declined for white Americans, but continued to rise in Black, Latino and Native American communities, according to Dr. Neil Gupta, who oversees the branch of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that tracks viral hepatitis.

The hepatitis C virus is spread through contact with blood from an infected person. The virus does most of its damage by infecting the liver, and, if left untreated, can lead to cirrhosis or liver cancer. Infections are driven mainly by people injecting illicit drugs.

Data released by the CDC for 2022 shows 4,848 new infections, down from 5,023 reported the before. The CDC estimates about 67,000 new hepatitis C infections actually occurred in 2022, because many people who become infected don’t realize it, meaning most new infections are not diagnosed and reported. But that too is down, from 70,000 estimated for 2021.

The new infection rate — used to better compare data from one year to another — dropped 6%. Though the decline is encouraging, Gupta said, the 2022 statistics are still twice as high as 2015.