TITLE:
The Curative HCV Treatments in China
AUTHORS:
Yifan Fei, Jiawen Jiang
KEYWORDS:
HCV, DAA, China, Australia, Europe
JOURNAL NAME:
Journal of Biosciences and Medicines,
Vol.6 No.8,
August
9,
2018
ABSTRACT: Hepatitis C disease is caused by hepatitis C virus (HCV) which causes chronic infections in about 180 million individuals worldwide. HCV has been identified as the etiologic agent of hepatitis C in 1989 and for the longest time it is very difficult to treat chronic carriers who are at risk of developing severe liver disease. Now there are three main combined treatments which can increase curative ratio from 10% to more than 90%. The advents of so called directly, acting antivirals (DAAs) in the last few years has revolutionized HCV treatment as these drug combinations can effectively cure HCV in the great majority of patients. The impact of DAAs on global disease burden has been limited, however, by the very drug prices. In this paper the situation was analyzed in China, Europe and Australia. DAAs have been made available to patients in Europe and Australia for several years and are generally accessible. The treatment is highly subsidized by the government, thereby making it possible for all patients in need to access therapy. DAAs have only been very recently been adopted for treatment of chronic hepatitis C in China. In our research, only the method of literature search from both Chinese websites and Foreign websites including journals, magazines and internet search is used. We analyze and compare the solutions that each of these countries is providing to their respective patient populations. Given the large number of chronic HCV carriers in China and other less developed countries solutions have to be found to produce DAAs most cost effectively.