LAHORE: This is with reference to the story “Low cost Hepatitis C treatment: ‘Everything is heading in the right direction — on paper’” (February 28). Whereas the reporter has highlighted the danger of Hepatitis C spreading fast in Pakistan and the importance of finding a local low-cost medicine for treating it, it seems that readers have been deprived of some facts about the disease and its treatment.
First of all, according to the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDCP) of the US, “there is neither a vaccine nor a treatment for the virus in the early stages of infection that takes place through transmission of blood of an infected person”. According to the CDCP, “There is no medication available to treat acute Hepatitis C infection. Doctors usually recommend rest, adequate nutrition and fluids.”
Regarding its treatment, WHO’s website states: “Hepatitis C does not always require treatment. There are six genotypes of Hepatitis C and they may respond differently to treatment. Careful screening is necessary before starting the treatment to determine the most appropriate approach for the patient.
A combination of antiviral therapy with interferon and ribavirin has been the mainstay of Hepatitis C treatment. Unfortunately, interferon is not widely available globally, it is not always well tolerated, some virus genotypes respond better to interferon than others, and many people who take interferon, do not finish their treatment. This means that while Hepatitis C is generally considered to be a curable disease, for many people this is not a reality.
Scientific advances have led to the development of new antiviral drugs for Hepatitis C, which may be more effective and better tolerated than existing therapies. Two new therapeutic agents telaprevir and boceprevir have recently been licenced in some countries. Much needs to be done to ensure that these advances lead to greater access and treatment globally.
The story does not mention the present occupancy rate of hospital beds by Hepatitis C patients. Lastly, I believe greater effort on prevention and creating awareness among the public will yield a much better result by controlling the spread of the disease than the curative measures being proposed in the story.
Javed S Ahmad
Published in The Express Tribune, March 2nd, 2013.
