Incidence Rate and Number of Cases of Acute Hepatitis C Infections in the US

"During 2019, a total of 4,136 acute hepatitis C cases were reported to CDC, corresponding to 57,500 estimated infections (95% CI: 45,500–196,000) after adjusting for case underascertainment and underreporting (see Technical Notes)(9). The reported acute hepatitis C case count corresponds to a rate of 1.3 cases per 100,000 population, a 63% increase from the reported rate of 0.8 cases per 100,000 population during 2015. Approximately 63% of acute hepatitis C cases reported to CDC during 2019 were among persons aged 20–39 years. The rate of acute hepatitis C was highest among American Indian/Alaska Native persons (3.6 cases per 100,000 population), compared with other racial/ethnicity groups. Among the 1,952 (47%) reported acute cases that included risk information for injection drug use, 1,302 (67%) reported injection drug use. A total of 1,041 patients with acute hepatitis C were hospitalized (48% hospitalization rate among 2,156 cases with hospitalization information available).

"A total of 123,312 new cases of chronic hepatitis C were reported to CDC during 2019, corresponding to a rate of 56.7 cases per 100,000 population. The rate of newly reported chronic hepatitis C was highest among persons aged 30–39 years (109.1 cases per 100,000 population), followed by persons aged 50–59 years (79.6 cases per 100,000 population), compared with other age categories. These rates are consistent with the previously reported bimodal distribution of newly reported chronic hepatitis C affecting multiple generations(11). The rate of newly reported chronic hepatitis C cases was highest among American Indian/Alaska Native persons (86.7 cases per 100,000 population), compared with other racial/ethnicity categories."