HIV and AIDS

High Risk of Hepatitis B & C

Hepatitis B & C are liver infections caused by a virus. These infections can be spread in the same ways as HIV is spreading. Hepatitis B and HIV are bloodborne viruses transmitted mainly through sexual contact and injection drug use. Because of that people at risk for HIV infection are also at risk for HBV infection. Hepatitis C is a bloodborne virus transmitted through direct contact with the blood of an infected person. It is seen that HCV affects 2–15 percentage of people living with HIV worldwide (and up to 90% of those are people who inject drugs) and that chronic HBV infection affects an estimated 5–20 percentage of people living with HIV. In United States this is one of the major reasons of death for people living with HIV.

• People in prisons
• People who inject drugs
• people with multiple sexual partners