SCRANTON, PA — Hepatitis Awareness Month may have just ended, but it’s still a great time to promote better knowledge and vigilance regarding this very serious, yet treatable disease.

Of course, when it comes to the various hepatitis viruses, much attention is rightly placed on hepatitis C (HCV), which affects about four million people in the United States. Unfortunately, more than half of those with the disease do not realize they have it, which makes campaigns like Hepatitis Awareness Month and hepatitis testing critical to spreading the word on the importance of HCV screenings.

 Hepatitis C is a liver infection that is spread through the blood or bodily fluids of someone with HCV. That can happen through sharing needles, unprotected sex or by being born to a mother with the virus.

Prior to 1992, hepatitis C was also commonly spread through blood transfusions and organ transplants. Since then, though, routine testing of the U.S. blood supply for HCV makes it very rare for someone to contract it that way.

HCV’s severity ranges from a mild infection without symptoms, to a mild illness lasting a few weeks, to a very serious, lifelong condition.

Acute hepatitis C is a short-term infection and lasts up to six months. Sometimes, the human body is able to fight off the infection successfully and the virus goes away. However, for most people, an acute infection leads to a chronic infection that, if not treated, can last a lifetime and cause serious health problems, including liver damage, cirrhosis (scarring of the liver), liver cancer and even death.

Some people with acute hepatitis C experience symptoms after they are exposed to the virus, including jaundice, dark yellow urine, fever, fatigue, joint pain and nausea. However, the majority of infections are asymptomatic until complications develop. Unfortunately, this can happen decades later, when it’s too late and the liver is too damaged to be salvaged even after clearing the virus with treatment. That’s why hepatitis C screenings (testing without symptoms) are so critically important for early diagnosis, with the goal of achieving a cure with minimal or no liver damage.

Once the diagnosis is made, treatment is highly effective — up to a 99 percent cure rate — and involves oral medications taken over a duration of eight to 12 weeks. There’s no need to see a specialist for every case of hepatitis C, since your primary care physician in most instances will be able to initiate treatment after the initial blood tests and scans have confirmed the infection. That said, a small minority of patients need to be treated by a liver specialist or infectious diseases physician.

There are a number of healthy habits patients can adopt to mitigate the disease’s progression, from reducing their alcohol intake to maintaining a healthy weight, being careful with over-the-counter medications, and receiving regular medical care that includes monitoring for liver cancer. These safe and effective treatments have been shown to reduce the likelihood of developing diseases such as cirrhosis and liver cancer.

At the Wright Center for Community Health, staff play an important role in preventing, diagnosing and treating infectious diseases like hepatitis C. Besides incorporating HCV testing, prevention, care and treatment into our patient-centered medical home model approach, we also provide essential services like outreach, patient education, case management and care coordination in order to significantly improve the health outcomes for patients living with the disease.

Even if you don’t think you have hepatitis C, make it a point to get tested at some point in the near future. And if you have risk factors associated with HCV, periodic testing should become a regular part of your long-term health maintenance. This is a highly treatable, highly curable disease, but early detection really does make all the difference.

Mark Madhok, M.D., Ph.D., is a board-certified internal medicine physician who serves as associate program director of the internal medicine residency and core faculty for the physical medicine and rehabilitation residency at the Wright Center for Graduate Medical Education.