In April, a consortium of federal agencies updated the Action Plan for the Prevention, Care and Treatment of Viral Hepatitis, originally drafted in 2011. The plan set ambitious benchmarks for the decade’s end, including: upping the proportion of those who are aware of their hep B status from 33 percent to 66 percent and those who know their hep C status from 45 percent to 66 percent; cutting the number of new hep C cases by a quarter; and wiping out mother-to-child transmission of hep B.

Among the plan’s principal priorities are: improving the testing, care and treatment of viral hepatitis; preventing all hep A and B through vaccines; improving viral hepatitis surveillance; and cutting down on viral hepatitis transmitted through injection drug use.