Based on the Audit Office's report a few days ago, information circulating on hepatitis C medication continued to raise questions about the hepatitis C elimination program. The report is about the Ministry of Health's 2018 activities, and hepatitis C elimination is only a small part of it.
The announcement that the number of medicines supplied was more than the number of patients was not news to Maka Gogia, Program Coordinator of the Georgia Harm Reduction Network.
At the start of the hepatitis C elimination program, it was estimated that 150,000 people were receiving treatment in the country. First of all, you should include the heaviest patients.
With the help of a plan developed by the Technical Advisory Council (TAG), 20,000 people must be cured each year.
Initially exceeded the planned:
“In the first year of 2016, this was justified - 21,000 were involved. These were people who already knew they had an infection and were looking for ways to treat it. In 2017 it was already difficult to find these people, instead of 20,000 came 14,000, in 2018 instead of twenty thousand. There has been a significant drop in patient morbidity. ”
However, programmers feared that the medical system would not be able to withstand high demand.
In 2018, the barriers arising from the implementation of the Hepatitis C Elimination Program were investigated. What the study showed:
“It showed that public awareness was very low. It showed that co-payment was a deterrent. Geographic availability was a factor - patients had to travel from small towns every two weeks for medication. The removal of these barriers took time and the state was not so flexible that they would be resolved immediately ...
The financial barrier has been removed. The geographic barrier has actually been removed as well, as many small towns have open clinics. The barrier to awareness cannot be dismissed as the majority of the population still do not know about the program. "
In Georgia, there is no indication of hepatitis C testing, but the ultimate goal is:
“This is truly an exemplary program - the treatment of 58,000 people is no small feat.
1 million 700 thousand people are already diagnosed - about 60%, which is a good indicator. It is recommended that at least 90% of the studies should be examined. Finding the remaining 30% is increasingly difficult. ”