Today, approximately 71 million individuals are chronic carriers ofHepatitis C, according to figures from the World Health Organization (WHO). Each year, nearly 400,000 people die from this liver disease caused by a virus, mostly from cirrhosis or cancer. Yet, by stepping up screening programs and increasing the number of treatments, 1.5 million deaths and 15 million new infections could be prevented by 2030, according to a study published in The Lancet this Monday, January 28.
Goals for 2030
In this study, the researchers examined the extent to which disease elimination goals set by the WHO are achievable. In May 2016, the World Health Assembly adopted the first global strategy on viral hepatitis, to eliminate it as a threat to public health. The organization had finally set the goal of “reduce the number of new cases by 90% and the number of deaths from viral hepatitis by 65% by 2030”. It estimated the cost of this implementation at $11.9 billion for the period 2016-2021.
The elimination of the disease, an ambitious goal
Only, according to scientists, a “prevention, screening, treatment” trio strengthened would reduce the incidence of new infections by 80% and the number of deaths by 60% compared to 2015. “Elimination of the hepatitis C virus is an extremely ambitious goal that requires improved prevention interventions and screening, especially in the most affected countries, such as China, India and Pakistan”notes thus, Quoted by France InfoProfessor Alastair Heffernan of Imperial College London (United Kingdom) who led this work.
“Achieving such reductions requires a massive testing program and a rapid increase in the number of new treatments in the short term – namely 51.8 million direct-acting antiviral (DAA) treatments by 2030”, he says. It would be a question of detecting 90% of the people affected, and treating them within ten years. Thanks to DAAs, which arrived on the market in 2014, nine out of ten cases could be cured, note the authors.
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