LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - The CDC recommends that everyone get a one-time blood test to see if they have the liver-destroying virus. Baby boomers currently account for more than 2 million of the 3.2 million Americans infected with the blood-borne virus. Hepatitis C is especially insidious as it can take decades to cause liver damage, and many people are unaware that they're infected.

CDC officials believe the new measure could lead 800,000 more baby boomers to get treatment and could save more than 120,000 lives.

"The CDC views hepatitis C as an unrecognized health crisis for the country, and we believe the time is now for a bold response," Dr. John W. Ward, the CDC's hepatitis chief says.

Adding fuel to the fire for earlier treatment is recent data illustrating that from 1999 to 2007 that the number of Americans dying from hepatitis C-related diseases nearly doubled. Two drugs have since been introduced that promises to cure many more people than was previously possible.

Hepatitis C can gradually scar the liver and lead to cirrhosis or liver cancer, and is the chief cause of liver transplant. It can also trigger damage in other parts of the body as well. More than 15,000 Americans die each year from hepatitis C-related illnesses, according to the CDC.

The hepatitis C virus is most commonly spread today through sharing needles to inject drugs. Before widespread screening of blood donations began in 1992, it was also spread through blood transfusions.

It's believed that hundreds of thousands of new hepatitis C infections were occurring each year in the 1970s and 1980s, most of them in the younger adults of the era - the baby boomers. First identified in 1989, about 17,000 infections of hepatitis C occur annually, according to CDC estimates.

About three percent of baby boomers will test positive for the virus, the CDC estimates. Of those, some manage to clear the infection from their bodies without treatment, but still have lingering antibodies that give a positive initial test result. That's why confirmatory tests are needed.

Only a quarter of infected people are that lucky. Most have active and dangerous infections, officials warn.

The agency's current guidelines recommend testing people known to be at high risk, including current and past injection drug users.

In addition, some experts say tattoos, piercings, shared razor blades and toothbrushes, manicures and sniffed cocaine may have caused the virus to spread in some cases.

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