Chronic hepatitis C is estimated to affect more than 200,000 people in Italy, however, only half are diagnosed. It is a silent disease that can be present for up to 30 years before serious complications occur.
Today, the challenge is to diagnose and treat infected people before this long silent phase. It is possible to treat with retroviral drugs, leading to the recovery of more than 90% of the patients.
From this point of view, chronic hepatitis C is unique in its kind: it is now the only chronic viral disease that can be cured.
In particular, in 75% of those who contract the virus, acute infection becomes chronic . A quarter of chronic infections recover spontaneously on their own because people spontaneously clear the virus. In the remaining three quarters, hepatitis C becomes chronic.
20% of chronic hepatitis sufferers then develop cirrhosis, a disease that can lead to liver cancer or chronic liver failure, and must undergo a transplant.