What is Hepatitis C?
Hepatitis C is a type of contagious liver infection that is caused by hepatitis C virus (HCV). Hepatitis C can be acute or chronic. An acute hepatitis C infection is a short term illness that can occur within the first 6 months of getting infected by HCV. While, chronic hepatitis C infection is an illness that is much more severe and may lead to long-term health problems or even death.

Causes of Hepatitis C
It is suggested that hepatitis C is not transmitted through sweat or semen. But hepatitis C virus can be transmitted through infected blood in the following ways:

• Blood transfusion
• Infected organ transplant
• Sharing infected needles, spoon, cotton and water
• Babies born to hepatitis C or HIV mothers, in rare cases
• Health care worker accidentally getting exposed to infected blood

Symptoms of Hepatitis C
Generally, hepatitis C infection may not show any apparent symptom in the early stages. When the signs and symptoms are visible, they are mostly mild flu-like.

Some common signs and symptoms of early-stage hepatitis C are as under:

• Minor fatigue
• Nausea
• Liver tenderness
• Joint and muscle pain
• Loss of appetite

In the later stage of hepatitis C, apart from the above symptoms, one may suffer from minor fever and jaundice. In case one does not show any external symptom, he may still have extensive liver damage internally. The infected person may even pass on the infected virus to other people without being even aware of it.

Hepatitis C Vaccine
Till now, no effective hepatitis C vaccine for public use is developed. This is because of the three reasons – the ability of hepatitis C virus to change very easily, no effective cell culture system is developed yet and because of genetic differences in hepatitis virus.