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Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releas...o-tt012913.php
Public release date: 31-Jan-2013
Contact: Press Office
press.office@admin.ox.ac.uk
44-018-652-83877
University of Oxford
Target 'super-spreaders' to stop hepatitis C
Each intravenous drug user contracting Hepatitis C is likely to infect around 20 other people with the virus, half of these transmissions occurring in the first two years after the user is first infected, a new study estimates.
The work, led by researchers from Oxford University, suggests that early diagnosis and treatment of Hepatitis C in intravenous drug users could prevent many transmissions by limiting the impact of these 'super-spreaders' (a highly infectious person who spreads a disease to many other people).
Working out 'who has infected who' in fast-spreading diseases such as influenza is often relatively straightforward, but in slow-spreading diseases such as Hepatitis C and HIV, where instances of transmission are spread over months or years, it is extremely difficult. The new approach, developed by a team from Oxford University, University of Athens and Imperial College, combines epidemiological surveillance and molecular data to describe in detail, for the first time, how Hepatitis C spreads in a population.
A report of the research appears in this week's PLOS Computational Biology...
Public release date: 31-Jan-2013
Contact: Press Office
press.office@admin.ox.ac.uk
44-018-652-83877
University of Oxford
Target 'super-spreaders' to stop hepatitis C
Each intravenous drug user contracting Hepatitis C is likely to infect around 20 other people with the virus, half of these transmissions occurring in the first two years after the user is first infected, a new study estimates.
The work, led by researchers from Oxford University, suggests that early diagnosis and treatment of Hepatitis C in intravenous drug users could prevent many transmissions by limiting the impact of these 'super-spreaders' (a highly infectious person who spreads a disease to many other people).
Working out 'who has infected who' in fast-spreading diseases such as influenza is often relatively straightforward, but in slow-spreading diseases such as Hepatitis C and HIV, where instances of transmission are spread over months or years, it is extremely difficult. The new approach, developed by a team from Oxford University, University of Athens and Imperial College, combines epidemiological surveillance and molecular data to describe in detail, for the first time, how Hepatitis C spreads in a population.
A report of the research appears in this week's PLOS Computational Biology...