People with Hepatitis C: Counts
Technical Notes
This report is compiled by the Virginia Department of Health and is based on HCV infections submitted by laboratories and local health departments to the Virginia Electronic Disease Surveillance System (VEDSS). Per Virginia regulations, hepatitis C is a reportable communicable disease. Local health departments are responsible for investigating newly-reported cases of hepatitis C. Investigations may include by are not limited to; identifying potential sources of infection, providing patient education and referral to follow-up, identification of contacts requiring testing and vaccination.
Case classification is based on Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)/Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists (CSTE) case definitions using available laboratory results and clinical symptoms. Cases that meet case definition criteria as a confirmed or probable case are summarized in this report. A probable case represents a person who actively infected or previously exposed to HCV, but not actively infected. Further testing of probable cases is required to determine if a person is actively infected. A confirmed case is a person who has evidence of active infection.
2022 case definitions:
Acute hepatitis C https://ndc.services.cdc.gov/case-definitions/hepatitis-c-acute-2020/
Chronic hepatitis C https://ndc.services.cdc.gov/case-definitions/hepatitis-c-chronic-2020/
Perinatal hepatitis C https://ndc.services.cdc.gov/case-definitions/hepatitis-c-perinatal-infection-2018/
Changes in standardized case definitions in 2016 and 2020 resulted in counting cases differently. Specifically, a case definition change in 2020 altered how public health defined a chronic hepatitis C case which led to a steep reduction in the number of probable cases starting in 2020.
Due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, hepatitis C cases reported in 2020 and 2021 may be artificially low. Data should be interpreted with caution due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on availability of hepatitis C screening, linkage to care, and ability to investigate cases. Additionally, changes in cases and rates may be due to an increase in new hepatitis C infections, changes in provider hepatitis C screening practices, differences in the number of resources each jurisdiction has dedicated to hepatitis C surveillance, or differences in reporting positive and negative hepatitis C test results.
To protect patient confidentiality, small numbers (between 1 and 4) at the county level are shown by an asterisk (*). Data from the previous completed year is not included in this report until that data has been finalized which is usually in July or August of the following year.
Rate or rate per 100,000 persons, also known as crude or unadjusted rates, refer to the number of people with hepatitis C in a particular group (e.g., females). A rate is a measure of how often an event occurs in a population over a given time.