Public health surveillance of hepatitis C: can it identify incident cases?

Objectives: To evaluate a follow-up system to identify incident cases among individuals notified with the hepatitis C virus (MCV). Method: A cross-sectional survey of medical practitioners treating individu als 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 notific ations were followed up with 54 individuals (9.7%) identified as incident c ases. Incident cases were significantly younger than prevalent cases (media n age 30 vs. 39, p<0.001) with drug and alcohol notifications being more li kely to be incident cases. Conclusion: HCV transmission is continuing at relatively high levels with i ncident 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 popul ation-based initiatives aimed at reducing HCV transmission.