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Article: PROGRESS TEN YEARS AFTER VIRAL DISCOVERY CHIRON'S ITALIAN RESEARCH OUTPOST FINDS HEPATITIS C'S TARGET CELL RECEPTOR By David N. Leff Science Editor.
- Article from:
- BIOWORLD Today
- Article date:
- October 30, 1998
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1998 A Thomson Healthcare Company. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Ebola virus has played starring roles in movies, books, and the news media as a swift, sudden killer. Yet the body count of its victims runs only into the hundreds.
There's a less famous viral scourge, hepatitis C virus (HCV), that infects 3 percent of the world's human population - 170 million people, including 4 million Americans - and condemns 8,000 to 10,000 a year to death in the U.S. alone.
Hepatitis C is known as the "silent disease" because its symptoms aren't noticeable until the viral infection is well-entrenched in the liver, its favorite target organ. HCV is the No. 1 perpetrator of liver disease, and the main reason for liver ...