Ahead of World Hepatitis Day on Sunday, the World Health Organisation (WHO) calls on countries to take advantage of recent reductions in the costs of diagnosing and treating viral hepatitis and scale up investments in disease elimination.
A new study by WHO, published on Friday in Lancet Global Health, has found that investing US$6bn per year in eliminating hepatitis in 67 low- and middle-income countries would avert 4.5 million premature deaths by 2030 and more than 26 million deaths beyond that target date.
A total of US$58.7 billion is needed to eliminate viral hepatitis as a public health threat in these 67 countries by 2030.
This means reducing new hepatitis infections by 90 per cent and deaths by 65 per cent.
“Today 80 per cent of people living with hepatitis can’t get the services they need to prevent, test for and treat the disease,” said WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
“On World Hepatitis Day, we’re calling for bold political leadership, with investments to match. We call on all countries to integrate services for hepatitis into benefit packages as part of their journey towards universal health coverage,” he said.
By investing in diagnostic tests and medicines for treating hepatitis B and C now, countries can save lives and reduce costs related to the long-term care of cirrhosis and liver cancer that result from untreated hepatitis.
Some countries are already taking action. Three countries in the Americas have established the goal of eliminating hepatitis as a public health problem by 2030, and in order to achieve that, they are working on price reductions of key antiviral medicines.
The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) Strategic Fund for medicines has available options to treat Hepatitis C. In addition to existing originator combination therapy, it is including WHO prequalified generic antivirals available for countries in the region that can buy the generic version of the treatment.
Around 3.9 million people in the Region of the Americas are living with hepatitis B and another 7.2 million with hepatitis C, while approximately 125,000 died from viral hepatitis in 2013.
Around 96 per cent of this mortality from viral hepatitis is a result of chronic hepatitis B and C infection leading to cirrhosis and primary liver cancer, or hepatocellular carcinoma.
Hepatitis B and C antivirals can reduce the risk of developing liver cancer by around 75 per cent. (UNI)
