People experiencing homelessness are one of the most at-risk groups for hepatitis C infection, the St Mungo’s charity has warned in advance of next week’s World Hepatitis Day.
‘Hep C is a real risk for the people we support,’ said the organisation’s hepatitis C coordinator, Sara Hide. ‘The intense psychological trauma of being homeless can lead to substance use and sharing of needles, and we see people who are homeless facing many other conditions alongside a hep C infection, including poor mental and physical health.’
The quicker hep C infections were treated the less likely people were to eventually develop liver cancer, she stressed. ‘The longer their health needs are unaddressed, the more intense they become.’ The ongoing collaboration between St Mungo’s, the Hepatitis C Trust and NHS UCLH Find and Treat as part of the hep C elimination programme was playing a key part in finding people with the infection who otherwise would not present at mainstream health services, she added.
‘We meet people affected by homelessness where they are; this can be through outreach, home visits, and clinics with screenings and treatment – the latter now less invasive and with shorter courses of medication,’ she said. ‘We look forward to strengthening this partnership over the coming years, and we hope the much-awaited homelessness strategy will crystallize the fact that homelessness and health, including treatment of hep C, can never be seen in isolation.’
Meanwhile, a new modelling report on alcohol pricing mechanisms has been issued by the Welsh Government. Of Welsh adults who drink, almost 20 per cent drink at hazardous levels and 4 per cent at harmful levels, says the document – with the latter group accounting for 27 per cent of all alcohol consumed in Wales. Increasing the MUP rate from its current level of 50p would ‘lead to further reductions in alcohol consumption and harm, with the biggest impacts in the most deprived groups’, it states. The Welsh Government is considering raising the MUP level to 65p, as the Scottish Government did last year.
New modelling of alcohol pricing policies, alcohol consumption and harm in Wales available here