Pharmacy hepatitis pilot 'a success'
Monday 18th January 2010
A three-month trial to test for hepatitis in community pharmacies has been more successful in detecting cases of the disease, initial figures suggest.
Carried out in 19 pharmacies across five primary care trusts, the study found 15 per cent of participants had hepatitis C and two per cent had hepatitis B, more than is usually found in GP testing.
According to Chemist and Druggist, typical statistics in GP detection of the condition is four per cent for hepatitis C and two per cent for hepatitis B.
Alastair Buxton, head of NHS services at the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee, put the success down to pharmacies' accessibility to patients and suggested that it could be applied to sexual health testing for HIV and chlamydia.
However, he added that the trial was the first of its kind and more research would need to be done in order to fully understand its usefulness.
Hepatitis is the inflammation of the liver caused by blood-to-blood contact or, to a lesser extent, unprotected sexual contact in hepatitis C and B.
Written by Mathew Horton
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