For the first time, health officials are proposing that all baby boomers get tested for hepatitis C.
Anyone born from 1945 to 1965 should get a one-time blood test to see if they have the liver-destroying virus, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in draft recommendations issued Friday.
The often undiagnosed virus is contracted through contact with blood from an infected person. While the risk of infection has dropped dramatically since the early 1990s, many older adults are still at risk, according to the CDC, which released the draft guidelines.
Baby boomers account for 2 million of the 3.2 million Americans infected with the blood-borne virus. The virus can take decades to cause liver damage, and many people don't know they're infected. According to the CDC, one in 30 baby boomers has been infected with hepatitis C.
CDC officials believe the new measure could lead 800,000 more baby boomers to get treatment and could save more than 120,000 lives.
The virus causes serious liver diseases, including liver cancer - the fastest-rising cause of cancer-related deaths - and is the leading cause of liver transplants in the United States.
The hepatitis C virus is most commonly spread today through sharing needles to inject drugs. Before widespread screening of blood donations began in 1992, it was also spread through blood transfusions.
Health officials believe hundreds of thousands of new hepatitis C infections were occurring each year in the 1970s and 1980s, most of them in the younger adults of the era — the baby boomers. The hepatitis C virus was first identified in 1989.
The CDC said in a statement it believes routine testing will address the largely preventable consequences of the disease, especially in light of newly available therapies that can cure up to 75 percent of infections.
The field has attracted broad interest with two new hepatitis C drugs -- Incivek from Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc and Merck & Co's Victrelis - reaching the U.S. market in the past year.
Companies including Gilead Sciences and Bristol-Myers Squibb aim to improve on those medicines with pills that do not need to be combined with injections of immune system boosters, which have side effects that can deter patients.
More than 15,000 Americans, most of them baby boomers, die each year from hepatitis C-related illness, such as cirrhosis and liver cancer.
Current U.S. guidelines call for testing only individuals with certain known risk factors for hepatitis C infection.
The CDC said it will accept public comment on the draft recommendations from May 22 to June 8.
More top health news:
Consult doctor before stopping Zpak
Laxative-free colonoscopy may be as effective
More doctors ditching the prescription pad