WHO Hepatitis C Treatment Guidelines: UNITAID Urges Efforts to Improve Diagnosis as Key to Increase Access to Medicines
Geneva (PRWEB UK) 8 April 2014 -- The World Health Organization’s (WHO) new Guidelines on Treatment of Hepatitis C recommending the use of the newly available and vastly improved medicines for hepatitis C are very much welcome. Increasing competition for production of the new medicines is needed to significantly reduce the currently prohibitively high prices to enable access for the up to 30 million people which WHO estimates are in need of treatment. However, screening and diagnosis of vulnerable populations to identify patients and build market intelligence will be vital to encourage new manufacturers to enter the market. For now, screening and diagnosis are too complex and expensive for large-scale use in middle-income countries where over 75% of the disease burden lies. These were some of the conclusions from UNITAID’s HIV Market Forum, a gathering of global HIV experts, held in Geneva 7-8 April.
UNITAID urges lessons from the advances in HIV diagnosis and monitoring with new point-of-care technologies suitable for low resource settings which enable the disease to be managed as a chronic condition rather than life-threatening disease. There are similar opportunities to use viral load technologies to monitor patients’ hepatitis C viral level in order to identify those most likely to need treatment. Developing simpler, quicker and more affordable viral load technologies is the key to vastly improved management of the hepatitis C virus.
The vast majority of the 150 to 180 million people infected are unaware of their status because the initial stages of infection have no symptoms. It is the long-term effects that can be the most damaging: cirrhosis, liver cancer and liver failure. Finding those affected who are likely to develop severe illness is essential for building market intelligence to encourage more manufacturers to enter the market. However, screening and monitoring currently costs $300-1,400 per patient, out of reach for most middle-income country budgets.
Until recently, the only cure for hepatitis C involved an expensive combination of injections and tablets that lasted a year. In addition to having limited efficacy, this regimen comes with damaging side effects that deters patients from finishing their full course. The new generation of treatment, as recommended by WHO, act more quickly, more effective and does not require weekly injections.
UNTAID acknowledges that manufacturers are likely to offer the poorest countries the new hepatitis C medicines at a heavily discounted price. However, as highlighted in the medical journal the Lancet, pharmaceutical companies are unlikely to offer discounts to middle-income countries they regard as emerging markets. Developing access for patients in these countries will depend on establishing affordable and reliable diagnostics and monitoring first.
Clare COURTNEY, Unitaid, http://www.unitaid.org, +41 227914581, [email protected]
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