Hepatitis body warns against hysteria

A statewide health organisation says coverage of the sentencing of an officer who assaulted a prisoner, said to be infected with hepatitis C, is fanning community ignorance about the disease.

Hepatitis NSW CEO Stuart Loveday says the facts have been lost in media coverage of the incident.

CCTV footage emerged this year that appeared to show Terry Dolling repeatedly punching prisoner Daniel Vos inside a Newcastle holding cell in October 2011, after Vos spat in Dolling’s face.

Mr Loveday says much of the commentary has focused on whether the spitting incident could have exposed Dolling to infection, even though hepatitis C is not spread through saliva.

“The hepatitis C virus is transmitted by blood-to-blood contact,” he said.

If anything, he told AAP, Dolling had increased his chances of catching the disease by punching an apparently infected man.

“It’s still quite unlikely, I would suggest, because I did note the prison officer was wearing these thin gloves,” he said.

The community was becoming unnecessarily alarmed, he said.

“Today we had a call from the parent of a child whose teacher said ‘Yes, you can catch hepatitis through spitting.'”

The state’s 3500 prison officers walked off the job for an hour on Friday morning in protest and as a show of support for Dolling, who has been sentenced to seven months with a four-month non-parole period over the assault.

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