According to an article on WebMD, Chronic hepatitis C is a long-lasting liver infection caused by the hepatitis C virus. During the first 6 months of the infection, it's called acute hepatitis. For most people with acute hepatitis C -- up to 80% -- their illness moves on to a chronic, lasting hepatitis C infection.
Most people are infected with the hepatitis C virus when the blood of an infected person gets into their body, reported the WebMD article. This often happens when people share needles to use drugs, are stuck by needles at work in a hospital or doctor's office, or are born to a mother who has hepatitis C.
You can also get infected by having sex with someone who has the virus. Your chances go up if you have an STD, an HIV infection, several sex partners, or have rough sex.
You can't get hepatitis C by touching, kissing, coughing, sneezing, sharing utensils, or breastfeeding.
According to WebMD. the CDC recommends you get tested for hepatitis C if:
- You received blood from a donor who later found out they had hepatitis C.
- You have ever injected drugs.
- You received a blood transfusion or an organ transplant before July 1992.
- You received a blood product used to treat clotting problems before 1987.
- You were born between 1945 and 1965.
- You have had long-term kidney dialysis.
- You have HIV.
- You were born to a mother with hepatitis C.
