Among the following, which is listed as an emerging disease in older adults?

• A. STI
• B. HIV
• C. Malaria
• D. Hepatitis C

Answer: (D)

Hepatitis C is highlighted here because its rise in older adults is driven by a aging-cohort pattern. Many people were infected years ago, before routine blood screening and safer medical practices, and now as they age they carry chronic infection that can progress to cirrhosis or liver cancer. This creates an increasing burden of disease in the older population, even though the infection itself may have been acquired decades earlier. There’s also no vaccine, but now highly effective treatments exist that can cure the infection, which has changed how we manage it in older adults. In contrast, while HIV, STIs, and malaria affect people of all ages, the specific trend of increasing burden as people age, tied to past exposures and long-term liver disease, is most characteristic of hepatitis C.