Members of the community gathered at the Downtown Mission to bring awareness to hepatitis in Windsor-Essex.
Thursday is World Hep C day. more than 600,000 people are diagnosed with hepatitis in Canada each year.
Windsor-Essex Community Health Centre hosted the fifth annual barbeque spread the word about a disease that effects more people in Windsor-Essex than anywhere else in the province.
The Downtown Mission holding a barbecue for World Hep C Day on Victoria Ave. near Wyandotte St. W. July 27. (Photo by AM800's Gord Bacon)
That's according to Street Health Director Beth Kinnaird-Iler. She says hepatitis A and B both have a vaccine, but hepatitis C doesn't and it's the most likely to be spread in the region.
"Windsor-Essex has a 15% higher rate of hepatitis C," she says. "We have 140 people on average test positive each year."
Kinnaird-Iler says both hepatitis B and C are spread by blood to blood contact and there is a cure.
"We've got testing that will identify it, there are drugs available at no cost, and they work. They've got very few side effects," she says. "There's a cure, so we want to get people tested."
Waiting for symptoms to get worse will only do more damage, she says the health unit or any doctor can perform the test for a disease many people don't even know they have.
"It's a disease of the liver that does not go away on it's own, so the sooner that you tested and find out your positive and get treatment, the better you'll be," says Kinnaird-Iler.
Hepatitis is associated with drug use and other high-risk behaviors, but she says there are plenty of ways people who lead health lives can contract the disease.
Kinnaird-Iler says symptoms are often mistaken for the flu, making it hard to detect.