Egypt is racing to eliminate hepatitis C

Subject: Science and Tech

Section: Health

Context:

WHO announced that Egypt had made “unprecedented progress” towards eliminating hepatitis C.

Details:

According to the WHO, Egypt became the first country to achieve “gold tier” status on the path to elimination of hepatitis C as per the global health body criteria.
Egypt has diagnosed 87% of people living with hepatitis C and has provided 93% of those diagnosed with curative treatment, exceeding the WHO gold tier targets of diagnosing at least 80% of people living with hepatitis C and providing treatment to at least 70% of diagnosed people.

“100 Million Healthy Lives” initiative:

Launched by Egypt.
Key interventions under the initiative:
- Egypt significantly reduced the prevalence of hepatitis C from 10% in 2016 to 5% in 2018 and an estimated less than 1% in 2019.
- Population-based surveys to understand the hepatitis C epidemic (who is affected and where).
- Development of an investment case to highlight the economic burden of HCV.
One third of the 12 million people living with hepatitis C are living in the Eastern Mediterranean Region.
Egypt also customized the elimination programme by involving generalist doctors to community healthcare workers and using telemedicine for hard-to-reach areas.
The biggest boost came from reducing the cost of medical treatment per patient to less than $50 through local manufacturing.

Criteria for “gold tier” status:

The “gold tier” status to reach the stated goal of eliminating hepatitis C includes meeting specific criteria such as ensuring 100% blood and injection safety, maintaining a minimum of 150 needles/syringes per year for people who inject drugs (PWID), diagnosis of over 80% of people living with chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV), treating of over 70% of individuals diagnosed with HCV, and the establishing of a sentinel surveillance programme for hepatitis sequelae, including liver cancer.

Hepatitis C:

Hepatitis C is an inflammation of the liver caused by the hepatitis C virus.
The virus can cause both acute and chronic hepatitis, ranging in severity from a mild illness to a serious, lifelong illness including liver cirrhosis and cancer.
The hepatitis C virus is a bloodborne virus and most infections occur through exposure to blood from unsafe injection practices, unsafe health care, unscreened blood transfusions, injection drug use and sexual practices that lead to exposure to blood.
Hepatitis C infection is unevenly distributed globally, with these regions accounting for the most — European (22%), South-East Asia (20%) and the Eastern Mediterranean (17%).
According to a 2023 WHO document, in 2019, there were 1.5 million new infections, with one third of new HCV infections occurring in the Eastern Mediterranean Region. The prevalence of hepatitis C across the world in 2019 was 58 million.
Direct-acting antiviral medicines (DAAs) can cure more than 95% of persons with hepatitis C infection, but access to diagnosis and treatment is low.
There is currently no effective vaccine against hepatitis C.

Source: TH