TOPIC:

Hepatitis Australia chief executive Helen Tyrell interviewed on ABC News Breakfast today with optimistic outlook -
www.abc.net.au/news/2016-07-28/hepatitis...ealth-threat/7666928

Thanks Sonix, here it is the news report in case anyone can't access the link.

Hepatitis C could be eliminated as public health threat


There is hope hepatitis C could be eliminated as a public health threat in Australia within the next "10 to 15 years".

Thursday marks World Hepatitis Day, and with more than 230,000 Australians living with hepatitis C, the virus is considered a major public health issue.

But statistics released from Hepatitis Australia show good news on the horizon for those living with the disease.

Hepatitis Australia chief executive Helen Tyrell said treatments had become increasingly effective, with a curative success rate of more than 95 per cent.

"We're on track to eliminate hepatitis C as a public health threat in Australia within 10 to 15 years," she said.

Ms Tyrell said the target to eliminate the virus had become a reality after a record number of people were treated in the past few months.

"We have new estimates from the Kirby Institute, which indicate in just four months over 22,000 people living with hepatitis C have commenced treatment," she said.

"That is 10 per cent of all people living with hep C in Australia.

"It is an absolutely massive increase on the number previous treated each year, which was around 2,000 to 3,000."

Ongoing investment necessary to eliminating hepatitis C

Ms Tyrell attributed the growing number of people seeking medication to the ease of accessing treatment.

"We don't have any restrictions on who can access it, people can go to their GP and they can prescribe them the treatment," she said.

"The treatment itself is very easy. It is just tablets. It is not toxic and it will generally produce a cure in 12 weeks for 95 per cent of people."

But Ms Tyrell warned the virus could only be eliminated if there was ongoing Government investment in treatments.

"Ongoing investment and effective partnerships between Government, researchers, clinicians and also people living with the virus are going to be absolutely vital."

When I look back to this time last year, it's amazing to see how far things have come.

We could quite well hit 30% of all patients having been treated in the first year.

Only 10% of people with HepC in Australia have started treatment. Is this an expected statistic?

Also, are people accessing generics being counted in these stats?

HelenTyrell's comment about people experiencing stigma from the health sector is very upsetting

10% seems a small percentage, but when I think that last year in Romania less than 1% from the HCV patients received the new interferon-free treatment, 10% looks like a huge number.....

But, the news about DAA generics is already spreading, so I am pretty sure the number of people being treated will increase.

Regards,
RHF

Well, that is 10% in just over four months. I reckon the Gilead bean counters may be rechecking their sums if we are only paying them for 13,000 per year.

No generics in those figures, they are based on PBS prescription numbers.

With respect to ROHCVF,
There's no value in comparing countries what treatment in one has government funding but not in the other.
I get that in your eyes 10% is a big number and from the perspective of someone living in a country whose government doesn't fund treatment it is, but I think it's not enough here. Lots of GPs (general practitioners) aren't prescribing and they could be. People in Australia can get treated for a little over $100.00 but many are not.
Very short sighted because treating someone with end stage love disease costs much, much more

Hello Beaches,

Totally agree, my remark was not intended to claim that 10% is a nice number.... It is not at all. Australia is in any case leading the path for people to get treated for HCV and has made a lot of progress by compare with other countries. Whether it could be better, oh yes, they can be better, but aren't... So I am with you on this.

My remark was in fact a sad ascertainment towards the situation from Romania and thinking that if at least 10% would have been treated in Romania that would still be something by compare with the currrent status quo. Without going too much in details (as I did already in others posts) - people in RO get a lot of promises about the new treatment, but when trying to get treated, apart from the expensive treatment there exist also bureaucratic barriers (like you need to get a voucher from your doctor to make the blood tests and fibromax to a certain laboratory, yet the doctor does not receive these vouchets or receives only couple of them... And during this time he/she has hundreds of patients waiting to be treated).
What you in Australia have now seems to be (actually it is) mission impossible in Romania.
And to make things even worse, there are many people ( in RO) who think about the generic HCV drugs as being a kind of, let's say it nicely, "occult" thing....
Some weeks ago I posted in another thread that the president of the NHS from Romania (CNAS) made a statement that from the Fall of 2016 other HCV patients, apart F4 stages, might be treated, but the reality is that they try to include F3 patients into treatment, but not the F0-F2 patients (there was an article published somewhere, but I cannot remember where). This means that for people like me, if there would have been no Australia, no fixhepc, no Greg Jefferys, I would have been sick and on the way to F3, then F4, then .....


Sorry for any possible confusion related to my previous post,

Cheers,
RHF

At the current rate it may well exceed 60,000 in the first year or about 25% of patients. The government expectation was 25,000.

ASHM are now running training for GPs which is great.

I can't remember with the funding for treatment in Australia, whether when the costs of medications reached a certain point, there was no further cost to the AUS taxpayer (me being one)??

Sorry if this is a dumb question and has been well covered before, but I think following relapse I am in brain fog territory again - not necessarily a bad thing with the way things are going at work at the moment.


J.

sabrecat wrote: I can't remember with the funding for treatment in Australia, whether when the costs of medications reached a certain point, there was no further cost to the AUS taxpayer (me being one)??

Yes! I believe it's capped. And from what I can remember, the Australian Government managed to pay around the same price as they have been paying for interferon based treatments (please correct me if I'm wrong).
I found this on Greg Jeffrey's blog, "the Australian government has budgeted for 6,500 treatments per year over the next five years ( the current treatment rate over the past four years has not been above 4,000 per year using the Interferon Simprevir Ribavirin treatments)
The drug companies appear to have agreed that if more than 6,500 people require Hep C treatment in any given year then they will supply the medication free to treat them. This means that if 10,000 people with Hep C seek treatment next year the drug companies will give the medicine free to the last 3,500."

Hi Sabrecat,

"Under the $1 billion deal negotiated by the federal government, the manufacturers will continue to supply Australia with the drugs free after a cap of about 13,000 patients a year have been treated."

From the below press report on the same day.

www.smh.com.au/national/health/new-drug-...20160727-gqeurm.html

Edit: seeing Peach's post I have no idea which number is correct....anyone?.....but looks like Australia is getting good value for money either way.