How can you get hepatitis c

However, hepatitis C can become chronic more than half the time and may be lifelong if left untreated. It can lead to long-term health problems , including liver damage and liver cancer. HCV is transmitted through blood-to-blood contact with someone with an infection. It can be passed through:. Prior to , blood transfusions were considered a highly viable method of transmitting the hepatitis C virus. Due to medical advances in blood screening, the likelihood of transmission via this medical process has been significantly reduced.

People who have a high risk for transmission with HCV include those who:. Around 30 percent of people with acute hepatitis C get better within 6 months without treatment, per data published by the WHO.

If you develop chronic hepatitis C, it can likely still be cured. The WHO states that antiviral medications can cure over 95 percent of hepatitis C diagnoses. This newer treatment usually takes around 12 to 24 weeks and has few side effects. Not everyone with hepatitis C will need treatment.

For some people, their immune systems may be able to fight the infection well enough to clear the virus from their bodies. Past hepatitis C treatment regimens required weekly injections with many negative side effects. Newer antiviral medications are often successful at treating the virus. They come in pill form and cause few side effects.

There are many medications for hepatitis C. Treatments most often include antivirals, with Riboviria sometimes prescribed if previous treatments were ineffective. Medications called direct-acting antivirals DAAs work to fully remove the hepatitis C virus from your body while helping prevent liver damage.

Brand names of these medications include:. The hepatitis C genotype can affect your treatment options. Your doctor may not have enough evidence just from your symptoms to properly diagnose hepatitis C. Your doctor may order a series of blood tests to check for signs of HCV, starting with a hepatitis C antibody test.

Next, a genotyping test can show which hepatitis C genotype you have. Finding cancer at an early stage improves the chance of curing the cancer. Most people infected with hepatitis C have no symptoms. Some people with an acute hepatitis C infection may have symptoms within 1 to 3 months after they are exposed to the virus. These symptoms may include. If you have chronic hepatitis C, you most likely will have no symptoms until complications develop, which could be decades after you were infected.

For this reason, hepatitis C screening is important, even if you have no symptoms. The hepatitis C virus causes hepatitis C. Contact can occur by. Doctors diagnose hepatitis C based on your medical history, a physical exam, and blood tests.

If you have hepatitis C, your doctor may perform additional tests to check your liver. Your doctor will ask about your symptoms and whether you have any history of blood transfusions or injected drug use. During a physical exam, your doctor will typically examine your body to check for signs of liver damage such as.

Doctors use blood tests to diagnose hepatitis C. Your doctor may order additional tests to check for liver damage, find out how much liver damage you have, or rule out other causes of liver disease. Your doctor may order one or more blood tests to diagnose hepatitis C. A health care professional will take a blood sample from you and send the sample to a lab.

Your doctor may recommend additional tests to find out whether you have liver damage, how much liver damage you have, or to rule out other causes of liver disease. These tests may include. Talk with your doctor about which tests are best for you. Doctors treat hepatitis C with antiviral medicines that attack the virus and can cure the disease in most cases.

Several newer medicines, called direct-acting antiviral medicines, have been approved to treat hepatitis C since Studies show that these medicines can cure chronic hepatitis C in most people with this disease. These medicines can also cure acute hepatitis C. In some cases, doctors recommend waiting to see if an acute infection becomes chronic before starting treatment. Your doctor may prescribe one or more of these newer, direct-acting antiviral medicines to treat hepatitis C:.

You may need to take medicines for 8 to 24 weeks to cure hepatitis C. Your doctor will prescribe medicines and recommend a length of treatment based on. Your doctor may order blood tests during and after your treatment. Blood tests can show whether the treatment is working. Hepatitis C medicines cure the infection in most people who complete treatment. Hepatitis C medicines may cause side effects. Talk with your doctor about the side effects of treatment. Check with your doctor before taking any other prescription or over-the-counter medicines.

For safety reasons, talk with your doctor before using dietary supplements , such as vitamins, or any complementary or alternative medicines or medical practices. The newer direct-acting antiviral medicines for hepatitis C can be costly. If you are infected with the hepatitis C virus, you can spread it to others even if you have no symptoms. Regular testing is recommended for people who currently inject and share needles, syringes, or other drug preparation equipment and for those currently getting maintenance hemodialysis.

A blood test, called an HCV antibody test, is used to find out if someone has ever been infected with the hepatitis C virus. This test, sometimes called the anti-HCV test, looks for antibodies, which are proteins released into the bloodstream when someone gets infected with the virus that causes hepatitis C.

Test results can take anywhere from a few days to a few weeks to come back. Rapid anti-HCV tests are available in some health clinics, and the results of these tests are available in 20—30 minutes. Your doctor will help interpret the results from your HCV antibody test and help guide you through next steps. It is important to know that. After exposure to the hepatitis C virus, it can take 8—11 weeks for an HCV antibody test to be positive. For most people who are infected, the anti-HCV blood test will become positive by 6 months after exposure.

For people with hepatitis C, it is common for liver enzyme levels to go up and down, sometimes returning to normal or near normal. Some people with hepatitis C have liver enzyme levels that are normal for over a year even though they have chronic liver disease. People with chronic hepatitis C and those with cirrhosis even if they have been cured of their hepatitis C infection should be monitored regularly by a doctor, because these people have a continued risk of complications of advanced liver disease, including liver cancer.

In addition, people living with hepatitis C should. There is no evidence that people can get hepatitis C from food handlers, teachers, or other service providers without blood-to-blood contact. Skip directly to site content Skip directly to page options Skip directly to A-Z link.

Viral Hepatitis. Section Navigation. Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Syndicate. Hepatitis C Questions and Answers for the Public. Minus Related Pages. Index of Questions Overview and Statistics.

What is hepatitis? What is the difference between hepatitis A, hepatitis B, and hepatitis C? What is hepatitis C? How serious is chronic hepatitis C? How likely is it that someone with acute hepatitis C will become chronically infected? Is it possible for someone with hepatitis C to get better without treatment?

How common is acute hepatitis C in the United States? How common is chronic hepatitis C in the United States? How is hepatitis C spread? The largest group at risk includes everyone born between and — a population five times more likely to be infected than those born in other years. Long-term infection with the hepatitis C virus is known as chronic hepatitis C. Chronic hepatitis C is usually a "silent" infection for many years, until the virus damages the liver enough to cause the signs and symptoms of liver disease.

Every chronic hepatitis C infection starts with an acute phase. Acute hepatitis C usually goes undiagnosed because it rarely causes symptoms. When signs and symptoms are present, they may include jaundice, along with fatigue, nausea, fever and muscle aches. Acute symptoms appear one to three months after exposure to the virus and last two weeks to three months. Acute hepatitis C infection doesn't always become chronic. Some people clear HCV from their bodies after the acute phase, an outcome known as spontaneous viral clearance.

Acute hepatitis C also responds well to antiviral therapy. There is a problem with information submitted for this request. Subscribe for free and receive your in-depth guide to digestive health, plus the latest on health innovations and news. You can unsubscribe at any time. Error Email field is required. Error Include a valid email address. To provide you with the most relevant and helpful information, and understand which information is beneficial, we may combine your email and website usage information with other information we have about you.

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You will also receive emails from Mayo Clinic on the latest health news, research, and care. The infection spreads when blood contaminated with the virus enters the bloodstream of an uninfected person.