liver and gallbladder disorders
Hepatitis C, Acute
Introduction
Acute hepatitis C is inflammation of the liver that is caused by the hepatitis C virus and that lasts from a few weeks up to 6 months. Hepatitis C is spread through contact with blood or other bodily fluids of infected people, as occurs when people share unsterilized needles to inject illicit drugs. Acute hepatitis C often causes no symptoms Doctors diagnose acute hepatitis C based on blood tests. No vaccine is available. Often, no specific treatment is recommended for acute hepatitis C. (See also Overview of Hepatitis , In the United States, over 4,100 cases of acute hepatitis C were reported in 2019. However, because many cases are not recognized or not reported, the actual number of new infections was estimated to be over 57,500 in 2019. The number of people with acute hepatitis C in the United States has been increasing since 2013. For unknown reasons, about one of five people with Alcohol-Related Liver Disease has hepatitis C. In these people, alcohol and hepatitis C work together to worsen inflammation and scarring of the liver ( 