'You don't have to be ashamed:' Blackfoot woman fights stigma around hepatitis

A woman from southern Alberta is using her own experience with hepatitis C to support others who are at risk of infection.

Mercedes Russell from Kainai Nation, about 180 kilometres south of Calgary, said building rapport with people is a key part of prevention and treatment. 

Russell said she believes she was infected with hepatitis C about seven years ago through unsafe injection drug use — though she didn't notice at the time. 

"I had no symptoms. I felt healthy," she said. 

That's a fairly common experience, according to Alexa Thompson, founder of the Alberta Hepatitis Elimination Network and a PhD student at the University of Alberta in laboratory medicine and pathology. 

"Most people infected with hepatitis do not experience symptoms until liver damage has already occurred which can sometimes take decades," Thompson said.

Hepatitis B and C can lead to liver cancer and death if left untreated. There is no cure for hepatitis B, although treatment is available, so early vaccination is used to prevent infection. Hepatitis C is curable by treatment taken over a course of eight to 12 weeks. 

Russell only got her diagnosis after she entered treatment for addiction and said the stigma of hepatitis C was overwhelming. 

"I didn't feel safe telling anybody," she said, adding she felt shame, guilt and fear following her diagnosis. 

"I felt like I was going to be shunned." 

Now cured and five years sober, Russell works as a peer counsellor for Indigenous Recovery Coaching in Lethbridge, Alta., where she believes education is a key part of prevention and treatment. 

Thompson said one in 150 Albertans are infected with hepatitis C, but only half know they have it. 

Although information about hepatitis is more available now, Russell said she knows people who are still unaware of the risks.

Even when she offers tests to people who use injectable drugs, they sometimes refuse, she said, "maybe because they're scared to get tested or because they don't want to get sober."