Until recently, the silent epidemic of viral hepatitis has eluded a unified national public health strategy for controlling morbidity and mortality. Consequently, untreated chronic viral hepatitis affects between 3.5 and 5.3 million Americans and continues to fuel rising rates of progressive liver disease, liver failure, and liver cancer (1). Chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection affects some 2.7 million noninstitutionalized Americans (2), represents the leading indication for liver transplantation in the United States (3), and has caused more deaths annually than HIV since 2007 (4). Although effective vaccination strategies have contributed to a decline in new cases of acute hepatitis ...
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Author, Article, and Disclosure Information
Ronald O. Valdiserri,
From U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Washington, DC.
Disclosures: Disclosures can be viewed at www.acponline.org/authors/icmje/ConflictOfInterestForms.do?msNum=M14-0404.
Corresponding Author: Ronald O. Valdiserri, MD, MPH, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 200 Independence Avenue SW, HHH Building, Room 443-H, Washington, DC 20201; e-mail, ron.
Current Author Addresses: Drs. Valdiserri and Koh: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 200 Independence Avenue SW, Washington, DC 20201.
Author Contributions: Conception and design: R.O. Valdiserri, H.K. Koh.
Drafting of the article: R.O. Valdiserri.
Critical revision of the article for important intellectual content: R.O. Valdiserri, H.K. Koh.
Final approval of the article: R.O. Valdiserri, H.K. Koh.
This article was published online first at www.annals.org on 29 April 2014.
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