You must hear about the dangerous disease hepatitis. It is a liver inflammation that takes place due to many reasons. It might be due to more alcoholic consumption, physical injury, bacterial or viral reaction, or autoimmune responses. A total of five hepatitis are known- A, B, C, D, and W. These are hepatitis viruses, among which some lead to fibrosis, liver failure, liver cancer, and cirrhosis.
When a person has liver damage, the ability of its function reduces, resulting in difficulty in filtering out toxic components from the body. It is challenging to understand all the given types and distinguish them. So, we have come up with this small information regarding hepatitis B and hepatitis C. You will learn about the similarities and differences between hepatitis B and hepatitis C in this article.
What is the difference between hepatitis B and hepatitis C?
Although hepatitis B has a vaccine, it is the most common liver infection worldwide. More than 230 million people suffer from chronic hepatitis B. But, hepatitis C is still undergoing research. The primary cause of liver damage or liver-related cancer is hepatitis B. When it doesn’t get treated well, the patient leads to death.
If you want to know the combined outcome, about 80% of liver cancer cases globally are due to hepatitis. Due to hepatitis B, people get liver cancer. According to the doctors, those who suffer from hepatitis B have more chances of dying than those suffering from hepatitis C. In hepatitis C condition, the person suffers cirrhosis, sometimes liver scarring before entering the cancer stage.
Many patients have been found to have hepatitis B without any symptoms. The body doesn’t show any sign of cirrhosis, making it difficult to predict the disease’s impact on the patient’s body. Asides from this, liver cancer screening become challenging. Researchers have claimed that the hepatitis B virus is ten times more infectious than the C virus.
It survives and remains contagious even outside the for a week. So, it is necessary to clean the surfaces in contact with blood. You can use a strong disinfectant or bleach solution to clean them. The hepatitis B virus survives in extreme temperatures while the C virus survives outside the body for the short term. The hepatitis C virus doesn’t live long on room temperature surfaces. However, there is much more to know about the C virus.
Apart from the primary differences, the two hepatitis types differ in the virus attack feature. There is a significant difference between hepatitis B and hepatitis C in how they attack a particular cell. Here, hepatitis C comes in the central role because it operates and enters a healthy cell to make copies of itself. But, hepatitis B reproduces in a covalently closed DNA structure.
Is there anything similar between hepatitis B and hepatitis C?
Yes, there are a few similarities between hepatitis B and hepatitis C. Both are blood-borne pathogens having blood-to-blood contact with an infected person as their primary transmission mode. Moreover, both can cause lifelong infections causing severe liver conditions. Hepatitis B tends to spread from mother to child, whereas hepatitis C spreads through using unclean needles that get used to inject medicines.
The early stages of hepatitis B and hepatitis C are similar if we take the symptoms. The early-stage takes about 6-7 weeks to show the signs of hepatitis B and C. Sometimes it takes more than three months to show up symptoms of the infection.
When symptoms are mild, they last only a week. But, sometimes, it does not show any sign and keeps on spreading and affecting your liver. Besides this, there is no such similarity between the two.
Final Words
Because of so many reasons, it is essential to protect yourself from hepatitis B or C. The best way to do so is by taking the hepatitis B vaccine. As of now, there is no vaccine for hepatitis C. But, you can prevent yourself from hepatitis C by protecting your liver.
You only have to make sure that you don’t share your items, including razors and toothbrushes. Besides this, you must wash your hands thoroughly and disinfect the surfaces contact with blood. That’s how you will keep your liver healthy, thus, protecting yourself from dangerous hepatitis.