Bloomberg School
Some people who become infected with hepatitis C virus and clear the infection may develop immunity from the virus, according to a study conducted by researchers at the Johns ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½ and the . The study, which appears in the April 27, 2002, issue of The Lancet and reported by Reuters Health, suggests that an effective hepatitis C vaccine may be possible.
The research team, led by David L. Thomas, MD, of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, and Shruti Mehta, of the Johns ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½, followed injection-drug users living in Baltimore, Md., over a two-year period. They found that 21 percent of the participants who were not previously infected with hepatitis C acquired the virus, compared with 12 percent of participants who were previously infected and cleared the hepatitis C virus.