Posted: 16-Aug-2005 << BACK
Martin Bolton is an electronics engineer in his early 50s who lives with his family in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk. He believes he has unwittingly infected hundreds of people with a liver disease. He tells Deborah Watson his story.
When I became a blood donor, I did so with the very best of intentions. I never dreamed that I was actually inflicting a horrific virus on other people. In fact, I was a donor for about 20 years before I was diagnosed with hepatitis C and in that time I must have passed on to hundreds of haemophiliacs.
I feel terrible guilt for potentially having passed it on to so many innocent people. At the same time, I am frustrated that so little is being done to tackle hepatitis.
It was in 1993 that I found out. I had gone along to another donor session but this time a screening system had been brought in. This new test detected that I had hepatitis C.
Looking back, it seems I caught it in the Seventies when I experimented with injected amphetamines. One infected needle was enough. Hepatitis C is a horrible thing to live with and Im paying the price for that brief experimentation every day.
I take a course of prescription drugs, including self-administered injections, in a bid to cure the disease and they all have some depressing side-effects. I put up with anaemia, mood swings, upset stomachs and the rest because theres a chance that I can be free of hepatitis. Without the drugs, youre steering a course toward liver failure or cancer, and the need for a liver transplant when the disease does its worst.
I find it frustrating that people dont know about the ticking time bomb of hepatitis. Even some medical professionals seem to think its not a condition needing urgent attention but it does. There are between 200,000 and 500,000 people in England suffering from it, and eight out of ten have no idea that they are a statistic. Thats largely because the virus can lie dormant for long periods, with no real symptoms other than occasional aches, pains and tiredness.
So we may be talking about someone who had a simple piercing, a tattoo or just unwittingly shared a razor with a sufferer years ago. Either that, or they may have received a transfusion or blood product from a donor like myself, many years previously. It wont be for many more years that they become ill enough to need help.
I predict that theres going to be a massive problem as a result of this disease in the next few years. There are going to be a lot of people presenting themselves, from all walks of life. Each one will be reliant on a doctor capable of recognising hepatitis C. At the moment, it seems to me that were pushing the problem to one side because its such a long-term condition and thats a mistake. Potentially, its going to mean around 50,000 liver transplants in the next 20 years because of hepatitis C alone. If people with the infection are identified and start treatment, they can begin to put the virus behind them for good.
I have a mix of good and bad days. Im still able to work but at times I feel low and unwell. I was luck in being immediately referred to a fantastic live specialist at Addenbrookes Hospital in Cambridge. That set me on a very positive path and now Im on a course of treatment with a good prospect of cure.
For now, I stick to a meticulous routine at home, both in terms of taking my medication and in doing what I can to keep the rest of the family free from infection. Sexual transfer of the disease is virtually unknown, so the main risk area is in the bathroom. Everything I use in our family bathroom is coloured red for danger. I have a red towel, red toothbrush and red razor, because however remote the risk, Im not about to expose my wife Carol or the children to what Ive gone through.
I have set up a website to help others with the virus. It launched two years ago and is now getting 4,000 hits a month. I felt it was important to let other people know about the condition, about how it differs from hepatitis A and hepatitis B and what you can expect if you are diagnosed. I know, from the fantastic feedback Ive received that people are finding it a valuable source of support and help. But I need people to know that they could be carrying this disease.
The national blood service says: At present the risk of contracting hepatitis C through a blood transfusion is exceedingly low (about 1 in 30million donations), due to NBS donor selection criteria, very sophisticated tests on the blood we collect and the guidelines encouraged in hospitals on the use of blood. The routine testing of blood for hepatitis C started in late 1991. Whenever the NBS is made aware of a donor who has been diagnosed with hepatitis C, we make every effort to identify the recipients of the blood and ensure they are offered testing. Anyone concerned because they received blood prior to the start of hepatitis C testing should contact their G.P. The NBS tests all donations for HIV, syphilis, hepatitis B & C and HTLV. We also test for West Nile virus and malaria for those donors who have traveled in certain parts of the world.
You can visit Martin Boltons website at www.theboltons.plus.com
copyright Daily Express 2005
