Hepatitis C free India achievable: Expert

Guwahati: A Hepatitis C-free India is an achievable goal if all stakeholders work together and seize the opportunity offered by availability of new scientific innovations, said Hepatitis Foundation of Tripura president Dr Pradip Bhaumik.

"India is facing a serious threat from Hepatitis C virus (HCV). It is, however, going to take a lot more than low-cost drugs to get patients cured," said Bhaumik in a press release today.

"Opportunity exists within the HIV Infrastructure in the race against HCV. A robust awareness drive, similar to the one adopted for combating HIV, should be initiated with focus on screening and early diagnosis," he said.

"HCV as an issue poses a much greater disease burden and is several times more virulent than HIV. At present we are unaware of the magnitude of the problem. It is imperative to undertake large field studies to identify pockets and better understand HCV epidemiology," Dr Bhaumik said.

"Once we know where exactly the problem exists, measures to ensure affordable and effective treatment should be undertaken," the medical expert said.

"Another issue is, at present we are unaware of the magnitude of the problem. It is imperative to undertake large field studies to identify pockets and better understand HCV epidemiology," he suggested.

"HIV/AIDS provides a useful illustration of effective

industry-based treatment assistance programs. It will merit using the experience with HIV to improve access to effective treatment as prevention and cure towards a HCV-free generation", Bhaumik said.

The HIV Sentinel Surveillance (HSS) in India has evolved into a credible and robust system for HIV epidemic monitoring and the same mechanism could be used to generate HCV data, he said.

A robust mapping for Hepatitis C would be important to reliably determine the burden of HCV in India, to identify high risk areas as well as the risk factors associated with transmission of this infection, he said.

"Prevalence of Hepatitis C infection in the country is more than six times the prevalence of HIV infection. But in the case of HCV, there does not exist the same level of visibility to the public or to policy makers and has received less budgetary attention globally when compared to HIV", he pointed out.

"Criticality of government intervention to tackle Hepatitis C is evident in the recently accomplished HIV and polio success stories," he said.

"With no polio case registered for three consecutive years, India has been certified as WPV transmission free. Effective implementation of intensive immunisation and surveillance activities against polio by the Indian government won us the battle," he asserted.