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Written question asked by Bob Laxton (Labour) on Monday, 28 November 2005, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Wednesday, 30 November 2005. It was answered by Caroline Flint (Labour) on Wednesday, 14 December 2005 on behalf of the Department of Health.

Hepatitis C

Question
To ask the Secretary of State for Health where in England the survey of prevalence of hepatitis C antibody was carried out.
Answer

The Health Protection Agency (HPA) has carried out surveys of the prevalence of hepatitis C virus (HCV) antibodies in several populations that have differing degrees of risk of acquiring HCV. These are: adults in hospitals, women attending antenatal clinics, people attending genitourinary medicine (GUM) clinics, prisoners, and injecting drug users (IDUs). These and the areas where the surveys were undertaken are outlined in the table¹.

Population surveyed Regions covered Date of survey
Adults in hospitals (residual sera from specimens collected) Wales, London, South East, South West, North West, Eastern, West Midlands and Northern and Yorkshire 1996
Women attending antenatal clinics London and Northern and Yorkshire 1996
People attending GUM clinics (includes injecting drug users) Anglia and Oxford, London, (North Thames, South Thames), North West, Northern and Yorkshire, Trent and West Midlands 1995 and 1996
Prisoners England and Wales 1997 and 1998
Injecting drug users All regions of England 1998–2004
(48) The regional data are based on the region where samples were collected—they are not necessarily the region where individuals lived at that time.
(49) The survey covered eight prisons in England and Wales and was categorised by prison type and not by region.
(50) Data for each region are available in supplementary tables on the HPA website at: http://www.hpa.org.uk/infections/topics_az/hiv_and_sti/publications/Annual2005_ua/ua_idu_2004.pdf

Secondary information

Type
Written question
Reference
440 c2147-8W;440 c2148W; 33587
Session
2005-06
Subjects
Hepatitis Patients Screening Surveys
Link
View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk