Egypt working to eliminate hepatitis C

On October 9, the World Health Organization announced that Egypt had made “unprecedented progress” in eliminating hepatitis C. Egypt has become the first country to achieve “gold level” status on the road to eliminating hepatitis C, according to the global health agency’s standards, the World Health Organization said.

“Gold” status to achieve the stated goal of eliminating hepatitis C includes meeting specific criteria such as ensuring 100% blood and injection safety, reserving at least 150 needles/syringes per year for people who inject drugs (PWID), and diagnosing and treating more than 80% of chronic For patients infected with hepatitis C virus (HCV), treat more than 70% of patients diagnosed with hepatitis C and establish a sentinel surveillance program for the sequelae of hepatitis, including liver cancer.

Egypt has diagnosed 87% of people with hepatitis C and provided curative treatment to 93% of those diagnosed, exceeding the World Health Organization’s gold-level target of diagnosing at least 80% of people with hepatitis C and providing at least 70 % of people with hepatitis C were offered treatment. The World Health Organization said people who have been diagnosed.

Egypt has launched the “Healthy Life for 100 Million People” initiative. Through this initiative, Egypt “significantly reduced the prevalence of hepatitis C from 10% in 2016 to 5% in 2018, and is expected to be below 1% in 2019,” the Africa CDC said.

“Egypt has gone from having one of the highest hepatitis C infection rates in the world to being on the path to hepatitis C elimination in less than 10 years,” WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a statement. The process has been simply astounding.” “Egypt is an example to the world of what can be achieved with modern tools, and the political commitment at the highest levels to use these tools to prevent infections and save lives. Egypt’s success will surely have implications for us all. Come to hope and motivation to eliminate hepatitis C from around the world.”

“Egypt is committed to eliminating hepatitis C and has successfully tested almost all eligible people and treated almost all people infected with the virus. This represents one-third of the 12 million people living with hepatitis C in the Eastern Mediterranean,” World Dr. Ahmed Al-Mandhari, WHO Regional Director for the Eastern Mediterranean, said in a statement.

According to the Africa CDC, Egypt has achieved great success against hepatitis C, thanks to key interventions, including population-based surveys to understand hepatitis C prevalence (who is affected and where ) and developing an investment case to highlight the economic burden of hepatitis C virus. Egypt has also customized elimination plans, involving general practitioners as community health workers and using telemedicine for hard-to-reach areas. But the biggest push comes from reducing the cost of care to less than $50 per patient through local manufacturing.

Egypt is now taking a leadership role by pledging to support other African countries in replicating its success, including increasing access to affordable medicines to treat hepatitis C.

Hepatitis C infection is unevenly distributed around the world, with the highest proportions occurring in regions such as Europe (22%), Southeast Asia (20%), and the Eastern Mediterranean (17%). According to the 2023 World Health Organization document, there were 1.5 million new infections in 2019, and one-third of the new HCV infections occurred in the Eastern Mediterranean region. The global prevalence of hepatitis C in 2019 was 58 million.

Although unscreened blood and blood products and inadequate sterilization of medical equipment in health care facilities are two important ways the virus is spread, the most common way the virus is spread is through unsafe injection practices, such as sharing needles, syringes or any Other Injection Equipment Drugs. However, the use of safe injections has reduced new hepatitis C infections.