Hepatitis C test results in just 20 minutes with point-of care screening

To mark World Hepatitis Day, Réseau ACCESS Network in Sudbury is offering free hepatitis C screening Tuesday from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. in Memorial Park.

Dominica Anderson, an outreach testing nurse says the organization chose the downtown park as its location because there's a lot of foot traffic during the day. She hopes the hot and sunny weather forecast will encourage downtown workers to visit the park to eat lunch, and perhaps learn something about the disease.

According to Réseau ACCESS Network, roughly 1 in 100 Canadians has had hepatitis C in their lifetime. Many don't even know they have it.

She wants to see the disease eradicated and is eager to test anyone who wants to know their hepatitis C status.

Anderson says that with today's point-of-care screening people can get a confirmed result within 20 minutes. She adds that the quick turnaround for results allows staff to start a conversation in more detail "whether that person needs follow-up care or if they just need a little bit of education on harm reduction as well as transmission of hepatitis C."

Anderson credits point-of-care screening with making access to testing much easier. "Because it's a finger poke, we take a small sample of blood. We mix it into the solution and we put a dipstick in the solution. That gives us a result in 20 minutes."

She says it's a lot easier than having to search for a vein, do a complete blood draw, send it off to the lab, and wait at least 48 hours for the results. Anderson adds that if the result does come back positive, she then has to contact the individual, and pull another blood sample to look for a live virus in their body. 

Point-of-care testing "cuts that waiting and diagnosis time down significantly because we can do that finger poke and get the result in 20 minutes."

Anderson hopes that people will leave the park a little more educated about hepatitis C. Along with getting tested, she wants people to understand how easy it is to screen for, diagnose, and treat hepatitis C. "We want to get rid of that stigma and discrimination associated with hepatitis C.and the people who may be living with it."

According to Anderson, hepatitis C isn't caused by just substance use and unprotected sex.

"Blood transfusions, organ donations and transplants, medical practices where stuff isn't sterilized properly, any skin-breaking activity where blood could be present and tools are not new and/or sterilized puts people at risk for getting hep C."

Réseau ACCESS Network is a non-profit, charitable organization is committed to promoting wellness, harm and risk reduction, and education about HIV/AIDS and hepatitis C.