Hepatitis B &
Hepatitis C

Hepatitis B is an infectious virus and the world’s most common liver infection. Around 1% of the Australian population have chronic hepatitis B (CHB), and many of those don’t know they have the infection.

Hepatitis B is most commonly found in people born outside of Australia and in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island people.

It can be acquired sexually, at birth from an infected mother, through sharing injecting equipment, or from contaminated blood products before screening of blood products for blood-borne viruses began.

Most young people in Australia have been vaccinated against Hepatitis B. If you’ve had CHB for a long time, it can cause liver damage leading to scarring, liver failure and/or liver cancer.

Hepatitis C is another infectious virus that targets the liver. Around 200,000 people in Australia have chronic Hep C.

In Australia most people will have acquired it through blood-to-blood contact often via:

• shared needles or other injecting equipment
• unsterile tattoos or body piercings
• overseas medical procedures, vaccinations, treatments, or traditional medical practices
• blood products before 1990, when screening of the products began
• needlestick injuries
• shared razors

Sexual & mother-to-baby transmission at birth can occur, but both are very uncommon In Australia, many people who have hepatitis C know they have it but may be unaware that there are new treatments. These treatments are very successful with little to no side effects and can cure hepatitis C in just a couple of months. However, some people are unaware they have hepatitis C because their risk was so long ago or they may have been put at risk only once. Even if you only had one episode of risk many years ago, you should still get tested because hepatitis C can be silent until you have late stages of irreversible liver damage.