It is a “national scandal” that Canada does not have a national public health strategy to deal with hepatitis C, one doctor says as World Hepatitis Day gets underway.

Hepatitis C is a chronic liver disease caused by the hepatitis C virus, the disease that kills more Canadians than any other.

Somewhere between 300,000 and 400,000 Canadians are estimated to have hepatitis C and “many of them” may not even know it, says Dr. Sergio Borgia, infectious disease consultant at Toronto’s William Osler Health Centre.

Many patients do not experience any symptoms until their liver becomes so damaged that they develop cirrhosis, or scarring of the liver, liver cancer and liver failure.

“It’s silent and it takes somewhere between 20 and 30 years for the virus to cause sufficient damage to your liver to the point that it means that your liver doesn’t work,” Borgia told CTV’s Canada AM on Monday.

Most patients are “not going to find out until quite near the end,” Borgia says.

Patients contract hepatitis C when they come in contact with blood tainted by the virus. This can happen via injection drug use, having a medical procedure or getting a tattoo with improperly sterilized tools, or sharing personal hygiene items such as razors. In Canada, some patients who received blood transfusions prior to 1990 contracted the disease.

Aging population to expose more cases

As the baby boomer generation ages, health professionals have predicted a spike in a range of illnesses, from cancer to dementia. The same will happen with hepatitis C, Borgia predicts, and Canada is underprepared to deal with it.

“One of the issues with hepatitis C in Canada, unlike several other developed nations in the world, is that we actually don’t have a concerted national public health strategy to deal with hepatitis C,” Borgia said. “And in my opinion, it’s a national scandal.”

In addition to “the human toll” of the disease, there will be a spike in costs associated with treating those patients, Borgia said.

The cost of treating patients with hepatitis C is expected to spike by 60 per cent over the next 20 years, according to the Canadian Liver Foundation.

To mark World Hepatitis Day, the foundation has released a new documentary about patients living with the disease called “Deal with It: Untold Stories of Hepatitis C in Canada.”

One of the featured patients is Sgt. Lance Gibson, an Afghanistan war veteran who lived with the disease for 28 years before he was finally diagnosed in January 2009.

Doctors suspect Gibson contracted the disease when he received a blood transfusion for a low platelet count in 1981.

By the time he received his diagnosis, Gibson was in dire need of a liver transplant. His sister stepped in as a living donor and two subsequent tests show that he is free of the disease. If his final test in August is clear, Gibson will be considered cured.

Disease linked to stigma

Gibson, who was released from the military last week, said he faced many questions about his lifestyle following his diagnosis and is speaking out to help other patients deal with the culture of shame surrounding the disease.

“A lot of the questions centred around drug use, promiscuous sex and that type of thing,” Gibson told Canada AM. “And it took a lot of convincing by myself and by my wife with medical professionals and with other people to just try to convince them that this was not the case for me. So it does take a while for the individual to overcome that barrier and to speak out on it.”