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Updated: Aug 3, 2026

Development of a Hepatitis B Virus Reporter System to Monitor the Early Stages of the Replication Cycle
Published on: February 1, 2017
Public health surveillance of hepatitis C: can it identify incident cases?
M P Staff1, A J Brnabic, J Schwarz
1Northern Sydney Area Public Health Unit, Hornsby Hospital, NSW. MSTAF@doh.health.nsw.gov.au
Objectives:
To evaluate a follow-up system to identify incident cases among individuals notified with the hepatitis C virus (HCV).
Method:
A cross-sectional survey of medical practitioners treating individuals notified to the NSW Health Department as having HCV between August 1996 and August 1997 was conducted.
Results:
Five hundred and fifty-four new notifications were received during the study period (70.7 per 100,000 people). Ninety-six per cent of notifications were followed up with 54 individuals (9.7%) identified as incident cases. Incident cases were significantly younger than prevalent cases (median age 30 vs. 39, p < 0.001) with drug and alcohol notifications being more likely to be incident cases.
Conclusion:
HCV transmission is continuing at relatively high levels with incident cases being significantly younger than prevalent cases.
Implications:
An efficient notification follow-up strategy that identifies incident cases could be routinely used to assess the effectiveness of population-based initiatives aimed at reducing HCV transmission.
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