Viral Hepatitis
Viral Hepatitis
Hepatitis is inflammation of the liver. Several different viruses cause viral hepatitis. They are named the hepatitis A, B, C, D, and E viruses. All of these viruses cause acute, or short-term, viral hepatitis. The hepatitis B, C, and D viruses can also cause chronic hepatitis, in which the infection is prolonged, sometimes lifelong. Other viruses may also cause hepatitis, but they have yet to be discovered and they are obviously rare causes of the disease.
Symptoms of Viral Hepatitis include: jaundice (yellowing of the skin and eyes), fatigue, abdominal pain, loss of appetite, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, low grade fever, and headache. However, some people do not have symptoms.
Hepatitis A
Disease spread primarily through food or water contaminated by feces from an infected person. Rarely, it spreads through contact with infected blood.
People at Risk are international travelers; people living in areas where hepatitis A outbreaks are common; people who live with or have sex with an infected person; and, during outbreaks, day care children and employees, men who have sex with men, and injection drug users.
Hepatitis B
Disease spread through contact with infected blood, through sex with an infected person, and from mother to child during childbirth.
People at risk are those who have sex with an infected person, men who have sex with men, injection drug users, children of immigrants from disease-endemic areas, infants born to infected mothers, people who live with an infected person, health care workers, hemodialysis patients, people who received a transfusion of blood or blood products before July 1992 or clotting factors made before 1987, and international travelers.
Hepatitis C
Disease spread primarily through contact with infected blood; less commonly, through sexual contact and childbirth.People at Risk are injection drug users, people who have sex with an infected person, people who have multiple sex partners, health care workers, infants born to infected women, hemodialysis patients, and people who received a transfusion of blood or blood products before July 1992 or clotting factors made before 1987.
Hepatitis D
Disease spread through contact with infected blood. This disease occurs only in people who are already infected with hepatitis B. People at risk are anyone infected with hepatitis B: Injection drug users who have hepatitis B have the highest risk. People who have hepatitis B are also at risk if they have sex with a person infected with hepatitis D or if they live with an infected person. Also at risk are people who received a transfusion of blood or blood products before July 1992 or clotting factors made before 1987.
Hepatitis E
Disease Spread through food or water contaminated by feces from an infected person. This disease is uncommon in the United States.
People at Risk are international travelers; people living in areas where hepatitis E outbreaks are common; and people who live or have sex with an infected person.
Non A-E Hepatitis
Some cases of viral hepatitis cannot be attributed to the hepatitis A, B, C, D, or E viruses. This is called non A-E hepatitis. Scientists continue to study the causes of non A-E hepatitis.