Efforts to eliminate hepatitis gaining momentum: WHO

Efforts to eliminate hepatitis is gaining momentum, according to World Health Organisation (WHO) data from 28 countries, including India, which represents around 70 per cent of the global burden of the disease.

On World Hepatitis Day today, the data reveals that nearly all the 28 countries, including India, have set up high-level national hepatitis elimination committees (with plans and targets in place) and more than half have allocated dedicated funds for hepatitis responses.

WHO asked countries to continue to translate their commitments into increased services to eliminate hepatitis.

In WHO's South East Asia region, which also includes India, hepatitis kills over 4,00,000 people every year.

This week, the global health body added a new generic treatment to its list of WHO-prequalified hepatitis C medicines to increase access to therapy and is promoting prevention through injection safety - a key factor in reducing hepatitis B and C transmission.

"It is encouraging to see countries turning commitment into action to tackle hepatitis. Identifying interventions that have a high impact is a key step towards eliminating this devastating disease.

"Many countries have succeeded in scaling-up hepatitis B vaccination. Now we need to push harder to increase access to diagnosis and treatment," WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.

Viral hepatitis affected over 320 million people worldwide in 2015, with 257 million people living with hepatitis B and 71 million with hepatitis C - the two main killers among the five types of hepatitis.

Viral hepatitis caused 1.34 million deaths in 2015 a figure close to the number of tuberculosis deaths and exceeding casualties linked to HIV, the world health body said.

The WHO data shows that more than 86 per cent of the countries reviewed have set national hepatitis elimination targets and more than 70 per cent have begun to develop national hepatitis plans to enable access to effective prevention, diagnosis, treatment and care services.

The world health body found that nearly half of the countries surveyed are aiming for elimination through providing universal access to hepatitis treatment.

"But WHO is concerned that progress needs to speed up," a release by the WHO said.

Hepatitis C can be completely cured with direct acting antivirals (DAAs) within three months. However, as of 2015, only seven per cent of the 71 million people with chronic hepatitis C had access to treatment, the health body said.

"WHO is working to ensure that DAAs are affordable and accessible to those who need them. Prices have dropped dramatically in some countries (primarily in some high-burden, low-and lower middle income countries), facilitated by the introduction of generic versions of these medicines.

"The list of DAAs available to countries for treating hepatitis C is growing," it said.

Elaborating on improving access to the cure to hepatitis C, WHO said it has prequalified the first generic version of one of the drugs - sofosbuvir.

The average price of the required three-month treatment course of this generic medicine is between USD 260 and USD 280, a small fraction of the original cost of the medicine when it first entered on the market in 2013.

"WHO prequalification guarantees a product's quality, safety and efficacy and means it can now be procured by the United Nations and financing agencies such as UNITAID, which now includes medicines for people living with HIV who also have hepatitis C in the portfolio of conditions it covers," it said.

With high morbidity and mortality globally, there is great interest also in the development of new therapies for chronic hepatitis B virus infection, WHO said.

Today, the global health body is also launching a range of new educational and communication tools to support a campaign entitled "Get the Point-Make smart injection choices" to improve injection safety to prevent hepatitis and other blood-borne infections in healthcare settings.

(This article has not been edited by DNA's editorial team and is auto-generated from an agency feed.)