Military
Personnel At Lower Risk of
Hepatitis
C Infection Than Civilians,
Study
Says
Apr 11,
2001
Dave
Eberhart
Stars and
Stripes Veterans Affairs Editor
Military
personnel are at three to five times lower risk
of becoming
infected with the hepatitis C virus (HCV)
than the
civilian population. The primary reason:
Members of
the uniformed services are less likely to
inject
drugs--the most prevalent mechanism by which
the disease
is spread.
Those
findings are contained in an epidemiological
study, a
joint effort of the Defense Department, the
federal
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
(CDC) and
the VA, that was released April 10.
HCV, which
is carried by nearly 4 million Americans,
is a
leading cause of chronic liver disease in the United
States and
now the most common reason for liver
transplantation.
Hepatitis C is a slowly progressive
disease
that frequently is without symptoms for 10 to
30 years.
The results
of the study, one of the largest
epidemiological
studies of hepatitis C virus infection on
record, was
published last week in the American
Journal of
Epidemiology.
More
Veterans Infected
The
researchers found that, among 10,000 active duty
personnel,
only 0.5 percent had HCV, and men and
women had
the same rates of infection. Among adults
in the
general population, 3.7 percent of the males and
1.6 percent
of the females (2.6 percent overall) were
found to be
infected, according to the CDC.
Veterans,
however, are faring much worse than either
active duty
personnel or civilians, according to earlier
VA data.
In January,
The Stars And Stripes reported the VA as
estimating
that almost 7 percent of veterans are
infected
with HCV--a rate three times that of the
civilian
population--and that "some veterans returned
from
Vietnam unaware that they had become infected."
The
hepatitis C virus was not identified until 1989.
"According
to Gary Roselle, M.D., of the Cincinnati
VA Medical
Center, 54,682 Vietnam-era veterans
tested
positive for hepatitis C between 1998-99," The
Stars and
Stripes reported. "Their average age was
49.4
years."
Kirt Love,
a Gulf War veteran who heads the Desert Storm
Battle
Registry, told Stripes April 11 that he takes a
dim view of
the latest study. "There are no third parties
or
[civilians] to help verify that the study was genuinely
objective,"
he said.
Love said
the military's HIV blood bank, which includes
skin tissue
samples and biopsies turned over to the Armed
Forces
Institute of Pathology, might be a better resource
for such
studies.
"We
have been trying for a long time to get permission
to use the
resources of the vault to collect and interpret
truly
meaningful data," he said.
21,000
Examined
The latest
study examined 21,000 military personnel
who were
serving in 1997. Blood samples from the
DoD Serum
Repository were used to test for HCV
antibodies
in a segment directed by the Naval Medical
Research
Center in Silver Spring, Md.
In addition
to active duty personnel and recruits, the
study
subjects included 2,000 reservists, 2,000 troops
about to
retire, 1,000 health care personnel, 1,000
troops who
served prior to 1974 (the Vietnam War
era) and
members of 3,000 other demographic groups.
Reservists
were found to have the same level of
hepatitis
HCV infection as troops on active duty, and
health care
personnel and Vietnam-era veterans were
found not
to be at a higher risk of infection.
HCV
infection was found to be concentrated in older
military
personnel.
"Among
troops less than 35
years of
age, only 0.1 percent, or
one out of
1,000 troops, had
been infected,"
said Dr. John
Mazzuchi,
deputy assistant
secretary
of defense for health
affairs.
"Likewise, among 2,000
military
recruits, two, or 0.1
percent,
had previously been
infected
with the hepatitis C
virus."
Screening
Now Offered
As a result
of the study, HCV screening is being
offered to
personnel older than age 34 and those
separating
or retiring from the military, Mazzuchi said.
"Because
this age group includes 80 percent to 90
percent of
troops with hepatitis C virus infection, we
have
implemented this program to screen the military
population
at highest risk," he said.
"In
addition, we have implemented an extensive
program to
identify patients who may have been
infected
with the hepatitis C virus through a blood
transfusion
before scientific research had developed an
accurate
test for this disease."
Illicit
drug use, officials say, is rare in the U.S. military
because of
the mandatory drug-testing of new recruits
and random
tests of personnel throughout their service,
according
to Mazzuchi.
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