types of hepatitis and different ways you can be infected.
Hepatitis A
This used to be called 'infectious hepatitis' because you get it from
contaminated water or food. The blood, faeces and some body fluids of
someone with Hep A are infectious. ("Now Wash Your Hands Please").
Hepatitis A can be caught through social or sexual contact, or by eating
or drinking infected material.
There is no treatment for Hepatitis A and patients are highly infectious
in the two weeks before symptoms appear.
Typically the disease clears up after a couple of months, but
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relapses can occur and it may take six months before you feel anything
like well again. It may occasionally take a more dangerous 'fulminant'
course and lead to death.
There is a vaccination against Hepatitis A, but if you've already been
infected you shouldn't need it. There is also a combined vaccine against
Hepatitis A and B (see below).
Hepatitis B
This used to be called 'serum hepatitis'. Like HIV, hepatitis B is transmitted
by blood to blood contact, sharing needles, and from mother to baby. Most
adults can fight off HBV infection without treatment (some don't even
realise they've been infected).
However, a minority will go on to become 'carriers' with few or no symptoms
but able
to infect other people.
People at 'high risk' of exposure to Hep B include gay and bisexual men,
