Australia may struggle to meet WHO targets for elimination of hep-C

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2021-09-17 04:00

Australia; NSW

Image by mohamed Hassan from Pixabay

Declining treatment uptake and the ongoing burden of advanced liver disease complications could mean Australia will miss the World Health Organisation (WHO) hepatitis C virus (HCV) elimination target, according to Aussie researchers. The team used mathematical modelling to update estimates for those living with chronic hep-C and liver disease in Australia from 2015 to 2030 and found that there has been a 28 per cent reduction in treatment uptake in 2020 compared with 2019. The team also found that the only way for Australia to meet the WHO 2030 target of 65 per cent reduction in HCV liver-related deaths was in their most optimistic scenario, which discounted other risk factors that impact the risk of death post-cure from HCV such as excessive alcohol consumption.

Journal/
conference: PLOS ONE

Research:Paper

Organisation/s: The Kirby Institute for Infection and Immunity in Society, The University of New South Wales

Funder: The Kirby Institute is funded by the Australian Government Department of Health and is affiliated with the Faculty of Medicine, UNSW Sydney. The views expressed in this publication do not necessarily represent the position of the Australian Government. GJD has received research grant funding from Gilead, Merck, and Abbvie. JG has received research grant funding from Camurus, Cepheid, Gilead, Hologic, Indivior, Merck, and Abbvie unrelated to this work. JG is supported by an Australian National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Investigator Grant (#1176131). Funders did not have any additional role in the study design, data collection, and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. The specific roles of each author are articulated in the ‘author contributions’ section.

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