If someone tells you that they have hepatitis C and you don't know much about it, it is important to get some accurate information so that you don't need to worry about it.

Sometimes people with hepatitis C are treated differently. Other people may make judgements about them and about how they might have got hepatitis C. This is called discrimination. Discrimination is hurtful, unfair and unacceptable. Everyone has the right to be treated with respect. How they got hepatitis C is not relevant.

People often discriminate because they are scared and don't know enough about hepatitis C or have wrong information. Some people are frightened they may catch hepatitis C from them, even though this is not likely.

People with hepatitis C may choose to tell their friends, their family or other people in their lives or they may not wish to tell anyone. Deciding who to tell can be a big decision and take a while to think about. They may be worried that the person they tell will reject them, disapprove of them or tell other people.

If a student or their parent decides to tell the principal at their school that they have hepatitis C, the principal is legally obliged to keep this information completely private and not pass it on to other people at the school, unless the student and their parents agree. If they tell a teacher at the school, the teacher may tell the principal but they are both legally obliged not to tell anyone else at the school.

All schools have procedures so that there is no chance that students could be infected by anyone else's blood. These are called Standard Infection Control Precautions (like the Blood Rule in sport).