A. The legislature hereby finds that:
(1) Hepatitis C is classified as a silent killer where no recognizable signs or symptoms occur until severe liver damage has occurred.
(2) Hepatitis C has been characterized by the World Health Organization as a disease of primary concern to humanity.
(3) Studies indicate that one and eight tenths percent of the population, nearly four million Americans, carry the virus HCV that causes hepatitis C.
(4) The National Institutes of Health (NIH) estimated that thirty thousand acute new infections occur each year in the United States and only twenty-five to thirty percent of those are diagnosed.
(5) Current data sources indicate that eight to ten thousand Americans die from hepatitis C each year.
B. It is the intent of the legislature to provide education, heighten awareness, and enhance knowledge and understanding of hepatitis C in order to promote prevention and early detection of the disease and to prevent the transmission thereof.