Hepatitis: Disease Control
(asked on 1st May 2019) - View Source
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of the potential merits of producing a hepatitis C elimination strategy to support the recently announced NHS England deal to help eliminate hepatitis C.
The Government is committed to meeting the World Health Organization (WHO) target of eliminating hepatitis C by 2030 but there are no plans at this time to publish a strategy to eliminate hepatitis C. A variety of initiatives are underway in England to improve awareness and case finding, re-engagement and linkage to care, especially in drug services, primary care, prisons and accident and emergency centres. In addition, NHS England is funding access to new hepatitis C treatments in accordance with guidance from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE).
A summary of progress towards achieving the elimination goal was published in 2017 in Public Health England’s report, ‘Hepatitis C in the UK’ at the following link:
This showed that the United Kingdom is on target to meet the WHO interim goal of reducing hepatitis C mortality by 10% by 2020. Better access to improved treatment has led to the first fall in deaths from severe hepatitis C related liver disease in a decade.