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If anyone deserves to be celebrating life with a naked picture, it's Pamela Anderson.

 

Hepatitis C is a deadly disease that attacks the liver, leading to chronic liver disease, cirrhosis of the liver, and liver cancer. Pamela Anderson has it.

Or rather, she did, up until a couple of days ago.

The actress posted a naked picture of herself to Instagram to announce that she is no longer suffering from hepatitis C.

Naked and cured. Image via Instagram.

She captioned the above pic, “I am CURED!!! – I just found out #nomorehepc #thankyou #blessing #family #prayer #live I pray anyone living with Hep C can qualify or afford treatment. It will be more available soon. I know treatment is hard to get still…#dontlosehope #itworkedforme #thereisacure #love #happy #americanliverfoundation #celebration #Idontknowwhattodo #iwanttohelp #cannes #iloveboats #onthesea #free.”

Anderson, 48, was diagnosed with hepatitis C in 2001. She said she contracted it after sharing a tattoo needle with her then-husband Tommy Lee.

“Tommy has the disease and never disclosed it to me during our marriage,” Anderson said in a statement at the time.

In 2003, she told Us Weekly that she reckoned she had about “10 years left in me, which is sad. Maybe 15, if I’m lucky”.

Anderson during her Baywatch years

The disease is contracted through the blood, and people often become infected from sharing needles. It can also be spread from having blood from an infected person enter through a cut, the eyes, or the mouth.

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Anderson spoke about her illness earlier this year and said that she’d started a new drug treatment that had just been approved by the Food and Drug Administration in the US.

“I’m very fortunate that I’ve had hep C for about 16 years. Sixteen years ago that was [presented to me] as a death sentence,” she told People magazine.

“I think it really worked on my self-esteem. Even though I may have looked confident on the outside, I think it really was a dark cloud that lingered over me.”

Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee.

The latest hep C drugs are increasingly effective — but also increasingly expensive.

It’s not clear which treatment Anderson was on, but a new drug approved by the Food and Drug Administration in the US called Harvoni costs US$1000 per pill, and patients are required to take one pill each day for at least 12 weeks.

According to Hepatitis Australia, new generation hepatitis C medicines offer a cure to nine out of ten people, but currently less than two per cent of hepatitis C sufferers are being treated each year.

About 230,000 Australians have chronic hepatitis C.