Corrections_Today_November_December_2023_Vol.85_No.6

Health Care Special Session & Luncheon

Compassionate and economically smart How correctional health authorities can help eliminate Hepatitis-C C orrections officials from all over the country filled the Pennsylvania Convention Center’s Room 103 for the

Currently, some 2 million people have Hepati tis-C and it kills more than 15,000 every year. Collins described the disease as a “silent killer.” “You may have a few years of feeling pretty normal while that virus is doing its damage

153 RD CONGRESS OF CORRECTION Health Care Special Session and Luncheon featuring Dr. Francis S. Collins MD, PhD with the National Institutes of Health and special advisor to President Biden and Dr. Carolyn Wester MD, MPH of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention talking about the impact of hepatitis C, proposed elimination efforts and the role of correctional professionals in achieving national eradication. Bob May of Centurion introduced the two guest

speakers and Dr. Collins began his talk by tell ing the assemblage about “A program to take this terrible scourge of a disease Hepatitis C and talk about the word eliminate. Something we might be able to do.” Collins was referring to a proposal from the Administration to eliminate hepatitis-C over the next few decades.

26 — November/December 2023 Corrections Today