Figure 3.1 – Acute – Number of Cases & Estimated Infections

Number of reported cases^* and estimated infections^† of acute hepatitis C — United States, 2015–2022

Source: CDC, National Notifiable Diseases Surveillance System.

* Reported confirmed cases. For the case definition, see Acute Hepatitis C.

† The number of estimated viral hepatitis infections was determined by multiplying the number of reported cases that met the classification criteria for a confirmed case by a factor that adjusted for underascertainment and underreporting. The 95% bootstrap confidence intervals for the estimated number of infections are displayed in the Appendix.

Summary

After over a decade of consecutive annual increases in acute hepatitis C, the number of acute hepatitis C cases declined for the first time in 2022. During 2022, a total of 4,848 acute cases were reported, corresponding to 67,400 estimated infections after adjusting for case underascertainment and underreporting1. The number of cases reported during 2022 corresponded to a 3.5% decrease from the 5,023 cases reported during 2021 and a 99% increase from the 2,436 cases reported during 2015.

While the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted health care access and health department surveillance capacity during 2020–2022, any anticipated reductions in the number of reported acute hepatitis C cases were likely offset by a change to the acute hepatitis C case definition in 2020. The new case definition was designed to better characterize cases classified as acute hepatitis C (see Technical Notes).