COVID-19 Vaccines & Hepatitis

If you’re living with hepatitis B or hepatitis C, you are eligible for COVID-19 vaccination under Phase 1b which is currently being rolled out in Australia. Researchers have found that while hepatitis C infection does not raise the risk of death from COVID-19, people with hepatitis C with more advanced liver disease were more likely to be hospitalised and admitted to intensive care. Furthermore, those living with decompensated cirrhosis were at higher risk of death from the COVID-19 virus. Studies in the United States, published in December 2020, found that people with chronic liver disease were at significantly increased risk for COVID-19, with the strongest effect in those with chronic non-alcoholic liver disease and non-alcoholic cirrhosis, followed by hepatitis C. While there has not been evidence of the COVID-19 virus affecting the liver, experts in the United Kingdom have warned clinicians not to be complacent about the risks of COVID-19 in patients with chronic liver diseases and cirrhosis because those people have poor immune function and worse outcomes from acute respiratory distress syndrome than the rest of the critically ill population. Under the Australian Government’s COVID-19 Vaccine Roadmap, people eligible for a COVID-19