Why do federal guidelines recommend that all people living with HIV be tested for Hepatitis C Virus?4,5,6 And why should providers test their HCV patients for HIV?
Because as many as 275,000 people in the United States are co-infected with HIV and HCV.1,2
Put another way, approximately 25% of the 1.1 million HIV-positive Americans are co-infected with HCV, and approximately 10% of HCV-positive Americans are co-infected with HIV. What’s more, co-infection with HIV has been shown to accelerate the severity of Hepatitis C, and co-infected individuals are more likely to develop end-stage liver disease.1
Your physician customers can test for both HIV and HCV with one fingerstick, using the OraQuick® HCV Rapid Antibody Test and the OraQuick ADVANCE® Rapid HIV-1/2 Antibody Test from OraSure Technologies.
There’s good reason to believe that the need for providers to test for HIV and HCV will only grow.
That’s because one in 30 Baby Boomers (born 1945 to 1965) has chronic Hepatitis C. Boomers make up 75% of the people infected. And many don’t even know it until the onset of liver disease.2
With approximately 17,000 new HCV infections occurring across all age groups each year3, it’s no surprise that in August 2019, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force issued a draft recommendation that all adults between 18 and 79 be screened for HCV.
Meanwhile, earlier this year, the federal government unveiled its “Ending the HIV Epidemic – A Plan for America,” whose goal is to end the epidemic over 10 years. The plan calls for more HIV testing.
Testing intravenous drug users for both HIV and HCV is particularly important. Intravenous drug use (IDU) is the principal transmission mode for Hepatitis C.1,2 Approximately 50% to 90% of people living with HIV/AIDS who were infected via IDU are estimated to be co-infected with HCV1 And HCV prevalence is approximately three times higher among those who acquired HIV through intravenous drug use than those infected via other modes.
It’s a simple message:
- One fingerstick.
- Two results.
- One goal: Eradication of HIV and HCV.
Let OraSure help you get that message across to your customers. Call us at 1-800-ORASURE (1-800-672-7873) or email us at customercare@orasure.com.
1 Linking People to Care: Hepatitis C and HIV Coinfection
2 Hepatitis C: Why Baby Boomers Need to Get Tested
3 https://www.uspreventiveservicestaskforce.org/Page/Document/draft-recommendation-statement/hepatitis-c-screening1
4,5,6 Linking People to Care