DEATHTRAP FOR ADDICTS WITH HEP C

Experts’ warning on overdoses

- Gordon Blackstock

Drug addicts with Hepatitis C are more likely to die from overdoses despite progress in treating the illness.

Experts said improvements in helping patients were “futile” if users were dying from substance abuse instead.

Researchers examined 35,000 addicts who had been diagnosed with Hep C since 1991. They found 1900 had died from the blood virus, also known as HCV, by 2018.

About 90 per cent of people with the illness get it by injecting drugs such as heroin.

Drug deaths in Scotland are among the highest in the world and blamed on an ageing addict population.