In a recent research article published in BMC Medicine, Nick Scott and colleagues used a mathematical modeling approach to show that vaccination is likely to play a role in reducing hepatitis C prevalence. Here, Dr Scott answers our questions about the study, and explores whether vaccination could help to eliminate the infection.
Nick Scott is an Econometrician at the Burnet Institute in Melbourne, Australia. Since completing his mathematics PhD in 2012, he has been modelling infectious disease transmission among vulnerable populations to inform public health policy.
In most developed settings, new HCV infections and HCV-related liver disease occur among largely disjoint populations. New HCV infections primarily occur among people who inject drugs (PWID) through the sharing of injecting paraphernalia, but the slow progression to liver disease means that the burden of disease is increasingly occurring in an aging population.
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