<div><p>They're the overlooked viruses: Hepatitis B and C together infect three to five times more Americans than the AIDS virus does, and most don't know it.</p><p>In the next 10 years, these two liver-damaging infections will kill about 150,000 people in the U.S. alone, says a new report Monday from the prestigious Institute of Medicine.</p><p>It calls for a major public health push to decrease the stigma of these simmering viruses, which are to blame for nearly half the liver transplants performed every year.</p><p>"We have allowed gaps in screening, prevention and treatment to go unchecked," said report chairman R. Palmer Beasley of the University of Texas, Houston.</p><p>Some people can fight off hepatitis B or C, but it becomes a chronic, incurable infection in anywhere from 3.5 million to 5.3 million Americans, the report estimates. While anyone can be infected, the viruses disproportionately affect blacks, Asians and Pacific Islanders.</p><p>Among the report's recommendations:</p><p>_Wider use of a vaccine for hepatitis B. Three states — Alabama, Montana and South Dakota — don't require hepatitis B vaccination before entering day care or school. Also, about 1,000 babies born to infected mothers each year develop hepatitis B themselves. Vaccinating at-risk newborns in the delivery room, instead of within 12 hours of birth as is done today, might protect more of them.</p><p>_Improve public awareness. People at highest risk for hepatitis B include those born in parts of Asia and Africa where the virus is particularly widespread, infants born to infected mothers, sexual partners of the infected, and injecting drug users. At-risk adults can seek vaccination. Those at highest risk for hepatitis C include current or former injecting drug users and people who received a blood transfusion before 1992.</p><p>_Increase research into a vaccine for hepatitis C.</p><p>_Improve health services for hepatitis patients and encourage more testing of the at-risk, with special attention to stigma. Immigrants in particular may be reluctant to seek testing given attitudes in their home countries; in China, for example, hepatitis patients face strong job and social discrimination.</p><img src="http://admatch-syndication.mochila.com/images/ad.gif?aid=66704566&bid=informcom" /></div><div id="copyright"><div>

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