Hepatitis C: data on hepatitis C

Public Health Scotland estimates that in 2018 21,000 people live with chronic hepatitis C infection. Approximately 50% of these were estimated to still remain undiagnosed with hepatitis C.

Approximately, one-third of infected persons in Scotland reside in Greater Glasgow, one-third in Lothian, Grampian and Lanarkshire, and one-third in the other health board areas. Two-thirds of infected persons are male and the majority will be aged less than 50 years.

In 2018, there were just over 1,400 new cases of diagnosis of hepatitis C (Chart 1) which is the lowest recorded since 1996. 

An article by Hutchinson and colleagues published in the Scottish Medical Journal in 2006 provides a review of the epidemiological data and public health challenges associated with HCV infection in Scotland. 

Hepatitis C affects disproportionately the most deprived populations. Chart 2 shows that the majority of people diagnosed with Hepatitis C live in either the most deprived (42% of HCV infections) or the 2nd most deprived (20% of HCV infections) areas of Scotland. The SIMD quintile is unknown for 16% of HCV antibody diagnoses.

UK 

It is estimated that around 210,000 people had chronic hepatitis C in the UK in 2017/18. The number of cancer and liver disease deaths attributed to hepatitis C was on the rise up to 2014, after which it has started to decrease. The number of people treated has greatly increased in the last three years. Both trends, deaths and treatments, probably respond to the introduction of new treatments, which are shorter and more effective. 

The incidence of infection among people who inject drugs has remained stable in the last 10 years, and the prevalence of hepatitis C in this group is 22% (2017). Over the last six years, the estimated number of undiagnosed cases in people who inject drugs has remained stable, at about 50%. This group is used as a proxy to understand the trends in incidence infection and undiagnosed cases for the whole population.