Jump in hepatitis C cases a wake-up call on drug abuse issues

But, he continued, the work of the health care workers in the community who notified the state of the increasing rates of HIV and hepatitis C will be what determines the future success of Scott County.

“Local response is imperative,” Adams said at the news conference. “Local involvement is imperative, and the only way this is going to be sustainable.”

Shortly after the conference, the state department of health released assessments of each of Indiana’s 92 counties to give local health officials a better understanding of their communities’ risk for a similar state of emergency. But many public health officials say it is a difficult task to find the resources to keep what happened in Scott County from repeating itself around the state.

“What happened in southern Indiana is wake-up call,” said Penny Caudill, Monroe County Health Department administrator. “It’s happening across the nation, but Scott County highlighted how silent it can be and how devastating it can be to people in a community. And we may not know about it quickly or easily.”

Rising rates of hepatitis C

Though the words “HIV outbreak” made headlines across the country in the months following the public health emergency declared in Scott County, a different, almost equally present virus is causing public health officials just as much concern.

“Most people in medicine are worried more about hepatitis C than HIV in lots of ways,” said Dr. Drew Watters, an emergency medicine physician at IU Health Bloomington Hospital.

An increasing rate of hepatitis C is a major indicator of injection drug use in a community and the HIV cases to follow, Caudill said. Also a virus passed through contact with infected human blood, hepatitis C cases in Monroe County have increased by 83 percent over the past five years, from 76 confirmed cases in 2009 to 139 cases reported to the state in 2014.