Hepatitis A, B, and C are three different viruses that all inflame the liver but behave very differently. Hepatitis A is a short-term infection spread mainly through contaminated food, water, or close contact, and people recover completely. Hepatitis B and C spread through blood and sexual contact and can become long-term. Vaccines prevent A and B.
| Item | Reported cases |
|---|---|
| 2020 | 9,952 |
| 2021 | 5,728 |
| 2022 | 2,265 |
| 2023 | 1,648 |
What hepatitis A, B, and C actually are
All three are viral infections of the liver, the organ that filters your blood, processes nutrients, and clears toxins. When a hepatitis virus gets into liver cells, your immune system attacks the infected cells, and that inflammation causes the symptoms and lab changes a clinician looks for. The label "A," "B," or "C" tells you which virus you have, how it spreads, and whether it sticks around.
Hepatitis A is caused by the hepatitis A virus (HAV) and is a self-limited illness. It does not become a chronic infection, and people recover completely CDC, About Hepatitis A. Hepatitis B and hepatitis C can persist for years as chronic infections that quietly damage the liver, so screening and follow-up matter for those two.
This page focuses on hepatitis A, since it's the one most often tied to food, travel, and sexual contact in outbreak settings, and the one people most often confuse with the others.
Symptoms — and the silent reality
Not everyone with hepatitis A feels sick. Adults are more likely to develop symptoms than children, and young children are often infectious with no signs at all, which is how the virus moves quietly through households and groups. Someone can be spreading it while feeling fine.
When symptoms do show up, they tend to come on over a few days and can include:
- Fatigue that feels heavier than ordinary tiredness, because the liver is inflamed and working poorly.
- Nausea and abdominal pain, often felt in the upper-right belly where the liver sits.
- Jaundice — a yellowing of the skin or the whites of the eyes — caused by bilirubin building up when the liver can't clear it.
- Dark urine and clay-colored (pale) stools, two of the most telling signs that bile isn't being processed normally.
If symptoms develop, they usually appear two to seven weeks after exposure. For a deeper walk-through of what each one feels like and how long it lasts, see our guide to hepatitis a symptoms and how long they last.
How hepatitis A spreads
Hepatitis A travels by the fecal-oral route. The virus is shed in stool and gets into a new person when they swallow it, even in amounts far too small to see. That happens through contaminated food or water, or through close personal contact with someone who's infected.
Sexual transmission happens, particularly through oral-anal contact, which puts the mouth in direct contact with virus from stool. Outbreaks have clustered among men who have sex with men, people who use drugs, and people experiencing homelessness, where person-to-person spread is harder to interrupt. Condoms help with the bloodborne and fluid-borne infections, but because hepatitis A spreads fecal-orally, vaccination and hand hygiene do more here. We break down the specifics in hepatitis a transmission through sex and food.
How hepatitis A is tested
Hepatitis A is confirmed with a blood test that looks for the antibodies your immune system makes against the virus. A clinician will draw blood and check liver enzymes alongside it, and results usually come back within a few days. There's no urine cup or swab for hepatitis A specifically; it's a blood draw. Many of the other STIs tested at the same visit are diagnosed from a simple urine sample, a self-collected swab, or a quick exam, often free or low-cost at health departments, Planned Parenthood, and Title X clinics.
If you know roughly when an exposure happened, timing your test matters, because antibodies take time to appear. See when to test after exposure to plan the timing, or go straight to get tested when you're ready. If you're weighing where to go, you can compare testing providers first.
Treatment for hepatitis A
There's no specific antiviral drug for hepatitis A. Care is supportive — rest, fluids, and good nutrition — while your immune system clears the virus on its own. Most people recover completely with no lasting liver damage. During recovery, avoid alcohol and check with a clinician before taking medications processed by the liver, since the organ is already under strain.
That's different from many sexually transmitted infections, where treatment is a defined course of pills, or a cream or shot, depending on the infection. For those, finish all of it even once you feel better, and ask whether your partner needs treating too so you don't pass it back and forth. Clinics handle these diagnoses every day.
Complications if hepatitis A is left untreated
For most people, hepatitis A runs its course and resolves without long-term harm. Because it doesn't become chronic, it doesn't cause the slow, silent scarring that untreated hepatitis B and C can. The main risk during the acute illness is dehydration from nausea and poor intake, and, rarely, a severe form of liver failure, which is why people who are older or who have existing liver disease deserve closer monitoring. The bigger danger is less about your own liver and more about unknowingly passing the virus to others while you feel only mildly off or not sick at all.
How to prevent hepatitis A
Hepatitis A is vaccine-preventable, and vaccination is the single best way to avoid it. Good hand hygiene — thorough washing after using the bathroom and before handling food — also limits spread. The vaccine is recommended for people at higher risk, including those covered in the outbreak groups above, and for travelers to areas where the virus is common.
If you want protection against both hepatitis A and B in one series, ask about the combination twinrix vaccine. For the sexually transmitted infections that vaccines don't cover, condoms used every time lower risk, and routine testing catches the infections that produce no symptoms.
When to see a clinician
See a clinician promptly if you notice jaundice, dark urine, pale stools, or unexplained fatigue with nausea, especially within the two-to-seven-week window after a possible exposure. Get evaluated sooner if you've had close or sexual contact with someone diagnosed with hepatitis A, because a vaccine or immune globulin given shortly after exposure can prevent illness. And if you're not vaccinated and fall into a higher-risk group, bring it up at your next visit rather than waiting for symptoms that may never come.
Reported acute hepatitis A in the U.S. fell sharply, from nearly 10,000 cases in 2020 to about 1,600 in 2023, as the large person-to-person outbreaks waned CDC AtlasPlus, 2023. Lower numbers don't mean zero risk, but they reflect how well vaccination and outbreak response work.