With over one crore people suffering from deadly Hepatitis C Virus (HCV) and cases being on the rise in the country, experts have been called for making available treatment free of cost to the patients to bring down their out of pocket expenditure.
“In India, the cost of HCV drugs is supposedly 400 times less as compared to most developed nations. Still, these drugs are out of reach of the poorest of poor and the Government should take a lead in making sure that no one who needs these drugs should go without them,” said Dr S Sarin, Director of Delhi-based Institute of liver and Biliary Sciences as he made case for making drugs for hepatitis B and C free to patients as for TB and HIV.
He was speaking at a recently-concluded three-day event, organised by the Asia Pacific Association for Study of liver (APASl) along with IlBS, where more than 1,100 delegates from over 32 countries participated providing new dimensions in treatment of liver diseases.
Speaking about the alarming rise in cases of Hepatitis B and C over the years, Dr Sarin said that IlBS alone has over 7,500 patients registered with either of these diseases on regular follow up.
Further, he said, these numbers are only expected to go up with time. “Also, the institute has observed a sharp increase in the number of patients reporting with Hepatocellular carcinoma, a cancer of the liver which is strongly correlated with hepatitis C.
“Although both Hep B and C are susceptible to control with access to right treatment, more needs to be done to ensure increase in public awareness regarding them,” he added.
The expert said that only if a large number of doctors diagnose and treat hepatitis C every day, we would be able to cure the one crore hepatitis C patients in India in the next five years.
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), about 130-170 million people worldwide are chronically infected with HCV, and more than 3,50,000 people die due to the HCV-related liver diseases each year.
Prof. Jin lin Hou, president elect of APASl, provided new options based on treatment guidelines for hepatitis B in China and Asia and showed that drug Interferon is again the main option for treating hepatitis B, as it stimulates the body’s immunity and helps viral clearance.
Experts from major Asian countries such as China, Japan, Korea, Pakistan, Bangladesh and India discussed action plans for controlling the spread of hepatitis C in their respective countries. They noted that re-usage of injection needles was still a major issue in developed countries like Korea, like in India.