Blood borne virus

The Blood Borne Virus Research Group is a multidisciplinary team from many agencies investigating the prevention and spread of HIV/AIDS, hepatitis B and C viruses and is part of the Manchester Urban Collaboration on Health (MUCH).

Blood borne virus project

We received funding from Manchester City Council Drug and Alcohol Strategy Team together with input from Greater Manchester Health Protection Unit and Dr Erika Duffell to conduct a Health Care Needs Assessment of blood-borne virus prevention services in Manchester. This led to a number of related research projects investigating why patients do not attend treatment, a comparison with Amsterdam and modelling for prevalence of hepatitis C.

Hepatitis C research

We are currently undertaking a series of research programmes funded by Greater Manchester Hepatitis C Strategy of the Association of Greater Manchester of Primary Care Trusts. The strategy’s chair is Dr Erika Duffell of the Greater Manchester Health Protection Unit. The projects are:

• A one-year project to carry out a Health Care Needs Assessment for hepatitis C across Greater Manchester.
• A Health Equity Audit for hepatitis C to inform current commissioning and future service provision.
• A hepatitis C database scoping project for 6 months, which includes mapping needs and investigating the best options for a database to help the strategy.
• The hepatitis C teaching and training project, which incorporates a needs assessment, scoping and gap analysis, the coordinating, develop and evaluation of new /current courses.
• A Community Support Worker whose primary role is to develop peer support groups and establish build community connections around patients with hepatitis C.