Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent estimate he has made of the number of pregnant women living with Hepatitis C.
Based on data from the from the sentinel surveillance of blood-borne virus testing in England, the Department estimates that approximately 1% of pregnant women have antibodies for hepatitis C (anti-HCV), a marker of hepatitis C infection. However, as no laboratory methods are currently available to distinguish definitively between acute or chronic hepatitis C infections, positive anti-HCV results do not necessarily represent current infections. A hepatitis C polymerase chain reaction test is required to identify a current infection.