Kirby Institute, UNSW, Wednesday, 6 April 2022
The World Health Organization has set an ambitious target to eliminate hepatitis C as a public health threat by 2030. Some countries, including Australia, have made good progress, but if elimination is to be achieved, existing health strategies need to be scaled up and targeted toward the people most at risk, according to new research from the Kirby Institute at UNSW Sydney.
The research, published in The Lancet Gastroenterology and Hepatology evaluated a broad range of interventions to deliver hepatitis C testing, treatment and care, and is the largest systematic review and meta-analysis conducted on this subject to date. In recent years, highly curative and well tolerated direct-acting antiviral (DAA) treatment has dramatically improved the management of HCV infection, but despite this, testing and treatment rates remain persistently low globally.
Evan B Cunningham, Alice Wheeler, Behzad Hajarizadeh, Clare E French, Rachel Roche, Alison D Marshall, Guillaume Fontaine, Anna Conway, Braulio M Valencia, Sahar Bajis, Justin Presseau, John W Ward, Louisa Degenhardt, Gregory J Dore, Matthew Hickman, Peter Vickerman, Jason Grebely, Interventions to enhance testing, linkage to care, and treatment initiation for hepatitis C virus infection: a systematic review and meta-analysis, The Lancet Gastroenterology & Hepatology, Volume 7, Issue 5, 2022, Pages 426-445, https://doi.org/10.1016/S2468-1253(21)00471-4.