The current opioid crisis is proving to be devastating for addicts, families, and entire communities. It also leads to acute cases of hepatitis C, a potentially fatal infection whose incidence in the United States has nearly doubled since 2010. Hepatitis Country has investigated this alarming epidemic and traced its origins to a dramatic increase in injecting drug use.
The film is set in West Virginia, where the infection rate is five times higher than any other state in the United States. For too many residents of these Bible Belt communities, heroin and other opioids offer a way out from the harsh realities of economic stagnation and moral decay. The film introduces us to some of these devastated characters. They are good people helpless in the face of addiction, and their lack of financial resources makes them especially vulnerable to death and illness.
They often do not receive appropriate treatment, and a lack of educational resources compound their plight. Hepatitis C is an insidious beast. Most drug users don’t even know they’re infected until they pass the virus on to many others by sharing needles.
Throughout the film, the comments we hear from users are nothing short of harrowing. High schoolers inject themselves on campus, and couples reach for crooked needles desperately for their next fix. One user claims he can count how many people he knows who don’t have hepatitis C using just one hand.
Local health departments are working in the community to provide information about the infection and distribute clean needles to help stop transmission. While these needle exchange programs can be controversial in some parts of the community, health workers claim their success is undeniable. Given the stigma surrounding drug use and addiction in America, funding to continue these programs remains tight. A new generation of drugs has proven successful in reversing the threat of infection, but their prices are being driven up to unsustainable levels by drug industry greed.
At times, the scenes depicted in “Hepatitis Country” resemble scenes one sees in the weirdest horror movies. But this is real life, and the pandemic depicted in the film is destroying too many hopeful communities. The film asserts that real change is only possible on the basis of new compassion.
