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Recently there was a news presented in Romania on the public television about the HCV drugs being made in India.
The video (RO language) is here: http://stiri.tvr.ro/bolnavii-de-hepatita-c-recurg-la-solutii-extreme-pentru-a-face-rost-de-tratamentul-fara-interferon_814336.html
The news was made in the context that in Romania there are these days negotiations for a new protocol to treat HCV patients and according to some information sources, it is estimated that about 10 – 12 000 people will be treated this year. It remains unclear what will happen with the rest of > 590 000 patients…Despite the fact that the article is not really on my taste – as it depicts the fact that the patients undertake risky situations, bla bla, it does mention couple of key facts:
– one patient declared he got cured with medicines from India (yuppy)
– people are informed that they can go to India to get cured via medical tourism (yuppy, however the price of 11 000 euro mentioned in the video is way too high)
– one doctor admits that this solution is not optimal, but as long as the medicines are registered and the patient is monitored by a doctor, it is fine (sounds like a copy of dr. Freeman speaking
). And even more, the doctor mentioned that if these 2 aspects are being met (the patient using registered drugs and being monitored by a doctor, they – the doctors – cannot restrict this.). Pretty well said 
For Romania, seing this news on a public television is in any case a step forward: at least it was mentioned on a public television about the hcv medicines made in Asia ….
Cheers
RHF
Thanks RHF,
Not knowing the Romanian language it is difficult to pick up any subtleties in what is being said. It seems good news in that people will now be aware of the Indian medications, that they work and that (some) doctors will support patients using them.
11,000eu is displayed on the screen the whole time which is maybe not so good as I imagine for the average person that is still totally unaffordable? But it looked like that is a complete tourist package price for a “holiday to India + medicine” so hopefully people will be encouraged by that and some will look at whether they can somehow “do it themselves” for cheaper. Are there any Hepatitis support groups or forums over there that can help spread the word about what the true costs are?
G3a since ’78 – Dx ’12 – F4 (2xHCC)
24wk Tx – PEG/Riba/Dac 2013 relapsed
24wk Tx – Generic Sof/Dac/Riba 2015/16 relapsed
16wk Tx – 12/01/17 -> 03/05/17 NS3/NS5a + Generic Sof
SVR7 – 22/06/17 UND
SRV12 – 27/07/17 UND
SVR24 – 26/10/17 UND
beaches wrote:Someone must be pulling your leg about the 11,000eu
Yep, you bet someone is! Somewhat surrprisingly it seems to be the nice tourist agency manager that they interviewed, who’d of thunk itl!!!
The problem is that having that ridiculous price splashed across the screen for most of the news items may cause many people over there to believe it’s true. (don’t forget that the ‘originator’ price for these medications in Europe is 3-4 times that price so 11k may look cheap……but it’s still totally unaffordable to the average Romanian.)
G3a since ’78 – Dx ’12 – F4 (2xHCC)
24wk Tx – PEG/Riba/Dac 2013 relapsed
24wk Tx – Generic Sof/Dac/Riba 2015/16 relapsed
16wk Tx – 12/01/17 -> 03/05/17 NS3/NS5a + Generic Sof
SVR7 – 22/06/17 UND
SRV12 – 27/07/17 UND
SVR24 – 26/10/17 UND
Hi Gaj & Beaches,
yes, you are right about the ridiculous price of 11 000 Euro shown there – even though this is the price of a nice 1 week vacation in India + medication. Last year, when I was searching ways to get treated, the price of this medical tourism agency was 12 000 Euro
. For a Romanian person 11 or 12 thousands Euro is a huge amount of money. However, there are several BUTs. 1) Before getting to know about Fixhepc or Greg Jefferys, in my searches of how to get treated, I was often seeing this medical tourism package and the “lower” price by compare with the price for the branded medication pushed me to search further about how I could get the generic medication. So …. in the end, it was “pretty good” to me to see the information that the drugs from India are effective.
2) There exist in Romania a support group for patients having all types of hepatitis, however I’ve never heard this group talking openly / honestly about the generic medication for HCV. What I see very often from the president of this support group is a constant demand addressed to the government for more money in order to treat more people and at the same time the president declares often that the patients proceed with desperate actions and risk their lives by ordering the medication over the internet. Personally, I do not like how this president it doing such talking because instead of pushing forward the idea that more people could get treated for less money with the generic medication, the only thing she does is to scare people in not proceeding with the generic medication and many are perhaps convinced to stay ill and wait.
3) In the past year, I was looking at the various news on TV in Romania about hepatitis C and nobody (till recently) was talking about medication from Asia / India. It was like people (especially doctors) were some kind of puppets talking about the treatment of hepatitis C in general and struggled to not speak about the solution coming from Asia. As far as I know, this video would be the first one (maybe I am wrong, but I doubt) being shown on a public television talking about HCV drugs made in Asia.
Overall, I am not too happy about the content of the video, but for the moment I prefer to see the “full half” of the glass: on a Romanian public television it was mentioned that HCV medication from Asia can be used to treat HCV.
Cheers,
RHF
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