Live Videoconference On Hepatitis C Virus to Be Held At UB

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- A live, interactive videoconference on the hepatitis C virus (HCV), a disease that has infected 3.9 million Americans, will be downlinked, via satellite, on Saturday Nov. 22 from the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta to the University at Buffalo through the Public Health Training Network.

The conference, titled "Hepatitis C: Diagnosis, Clinical Management, Prevention," will be held from 8:30 a.m. until 11 a.m. in 120 Clemens Hall on the North (Amherst) Campus. It is free of charge, or $25 for participants earning continuing-medical-education credit. The conference will be open to the public, but is specifically targeted toward primary-care physicians, nurses, infectious-disease specialists, the staff of blood banks and professionals in public or other health fields.

Co-sponsoring the conference are the UB Department of Social and Preventive Medicine, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the Hepatitis Foundation International, and the New York State Department of Health.

The objectives of the conference are to discuss the natural history of HCV infection and risk factors associated with the virus, as well as the serologic and lab tests used to diagnose and evaluate patients with HCV. Treatment options and the most effective methods of counseling infected patients also will be addressed.

The faculty of internationally prominent speakers at the conference will include Miriam Alter, chief of the Epidemiology Section, Hepatitis Branch, in CDC, and Jay Hoofnagle, director of the Division of Digestive Diseases and Nutrition in the National Institutes of Health.

Complete information on the conference, including how to register for credit, is available on-line at http://www.hepfi.org or by calling the UB Department of Social and Preventive Medicine at (716) 829-2975.