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| Hepatitis C epidemic sweeps NSW prisons |
| By Sydney Morning Herald |
| Published: 01/19/2004 |
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Prisons in New South Wales (NSW) are confronting one of Australia's fastest growing epidemics on a scale mainstream medicine has yet to face with 60 percent of women and 40 percent of men in the state's jails infected with hepatitis C. There are now specialist hepatitis C clinics in each of the state's 29 correction centers, providing and monitoring treatment and organizing liver biopsies for prisoners - one of only three programs in the world providing such a comprehensive service. Michael Levy, director of population health for the NSW Corrections Health Service, said there are 4,000 people with hepatitis C in the state's prisons at any one time. Last year, new hepatitis C infections in Australia reached 16,000 a year. So far, about 80 people have used the program. "Until we get very high coverage - around 75 per cent of people with hepatitis C - then this project will have no impact on transmission and prevalence rates of hepatitis C in prisons." The hepatitis C program is run by public health nurses who monitor diagnosis and treatment of patients, supported by a network of specialists that visits the prisons, providing access to better targeted health services than people would get outside jail, Professor Levy said. |
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