3 ms·
The article says nothing about the false positive and false negative rates of the test, and proceeds as if the screening is infallible. Even given what was sai
by jp57 7y ago
The article says nothing about the false positive and false negative rates of the test, and proceeds as if the screening is infallible.
Even given what was said in the article, one has to assume that the incidence of the infection in the general population is quite low—probably measured in basis points—which means that the false positive rate of the test would have to be very low to get a high positive predictive value. It may well be so, but we'd need to know that (and the costs of treating the uninfected) to understand whether universal testing is really warranted
- inasio 7y agoThe two key groups in western countries are baby-boomers (likely acquired the infection from dentists/doctors reusing needles), and intravenous drug users. The best bang for your buck is in testing and treating this last population, but you have to be careful and try to do followups to prevent reinfection. It's worthwhile to test the baby boomer population as many of them could require liver transplants soon if not detected