Prospective Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2015. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Sep 21, 2015; 21(35): 10224-10233
Published online Sep 21, 2015. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v21.i35.10224
Prevalence and knowledge of hepatitis C in a middle-aged population, Dunedin, New Zealand
Jane Vermunt, Margaret Fraser, Peter Herbison, Anna Wiles, Martin Schlup, Michael Schultz
Jane Vermunt, Anna Wiles, Martin Schlup, Michael Schultz, Department of Medicine, Dunedin School of Medicine, University of Otago, Dunedin 9054, New Zealand
Margaret Fraser, Martin Schlup, Michael Schultz, Gastroenterology Unit, Dunedin Hospital, Southern District Health Board, Dunedin 9054, New Zealand
Peter Herbison, Department of Preventive and Social Medicine, University of Otago, Dunedin 9054, New Zealand
Author contributions: Vermunt J, Fraser M, Schlup M and Schultz M designed research; Vermunt J performed research; Vermunt J, Schultz M and Herbison P analysed data; Wiles A analysed reagents; Vermunt J and Schultz M wrote the paper.
Supported by (in part) New Zealand Ministry of Health and the Healthcare of Otago Charitable Trust.
Institutional review board statement: The study was reviewed and approved by the Northern Y Ethics Committee, No. NTY/10/12/104 (knowledge group) and the Lower Regional South Ethics Committee, No. LRS/12/EXP/09 (prevalence group).
Informed consent statement: All study participants provided informed written consent prior to study enrolment. Regarding remaining blood samples, consent was not obtained but the presented data are anonymized and risk of identification is low.
Conflict-of-interest statement: No conflict of interest.
Data sharing statement: Technical appendix, statistical code, and dataset available from the corresponding author at michael.schultz@otago.ac.nz.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Michael Schultz, Associate Professor, Department of Medicine, Dunedin School of Medicine, University of Otago, PO Box 913, Dunedin 9054, New Zealand. michael.schultz@otago.ac.nz
Telephone: +64-3-4740999
Received: April 1, 2015
Peer-review started: April 1, 2015
First decision: May 18, 2015
Revised: June 6, 2015
Accepted: July 8, 2015
Article in press: July 8, 2015
Published online: September 21, 2015
Processing time: 170 Days and 3.8 Hours
Core Tip

Core tip: It is projected that the public health burden due to hepatitis C virus (HCV) will increase substantially over the next 2 decades and that the mortality related to HCV will triple by 2030. We thus require a marked increase in the identification of patients infected with HCV. Safe and successful treatment of those infected is now imminently possible due to the advent of direct acting antiviral agents (DAAs). The number of diagnosed cases must increase substantially to allow DAAs to become cost effective. Our study estimated that 4.01% of asymptomatic 40-59 years old adults living in Dunedin city are infected with HCV. Most have limited knowledge of HCV and its treatment, therefore if educational and health promotion efforts are to produce maximum results for expenditure, they should be designed and targeted at audiences with lower education levels and low socio-economic status, especially immigrants and unemployed persons.