LONDON, Sept. 30 (UPI) -- An epidemic of blood-borne hepatitis C has infected an estimated 500,000 people in Britain and it is rising in other European countries as well.
Some 150,000 people in Britain are expected to die of treatable hepatitis C in the next 20 years, but most don't know they have the silent killer, the Independent said Friday.
Most victims of the disease are middle-class professional men and women who dabbled in drugs while young and became infected through shared needles, while others became infected through contaminated blood transfusions before testing for hepatitis C was introduced in 1991.
Less than 2 percent of cases in Britain receive drug treatment for the disease, compared with 15 percent in France, according to a report published by the charity Hepatitis C Trust.
The disease can also be spread via tattooing, snorting cocaine through a shared straw, sharing razors or toothbrushes, sex and childbirth.
