Mercy's Dr. Anurag Maheshwari Discusses Importance of Screening for Hepatitis C

May is Hepatitis C Awareness Month. 

Doctors are trying to encourage baby boomers, people born between 1945 and 1965 to get a one time blood test to determine if they have the disease. 

Doctors say baby boomers are most at risk. 

On Maryland's News This Week, Mercy Medical Center’s  Dr. Anurag Maheshwari of The Institute for Digestive Health & Liver Disease believes contaminate needles in medial procedures conducted years before is a possible cause of the disease. 

According to Dr. Maheshwari, about a third of his patients don't know how they got the disease. 

According to a report by the Centers for Disease Control published earlier this month in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases, hepatitis C killed almost 20,000 Americans in 2013. More people died from hepatitis C than from 60 other infectious diseases combined, including HIV and TB, with baby boomers at greatest risk. 

Dr. Maheshwari explained that  a simple blood test can determine if a patient has the disease, which is highly curable. 

New drugs give this disease a 95-percent cure rate.

To listen to Dr. Maheshwari’s interview on WBAL Radio regarding Hepatitis C, its diagnosis and treatment, click here.