It was hailed as a “triumph of 21st century medicine” — a daily pill that cures a life-threatening liver disease in a matter of weeks with minimal side effects and a success rate of more than 95 percent.
But more than a decade after direct-acting antivirals to cure hepatitis C hit the market, potentially hundreds of thousands of Americans are still untreated and the U.S. is lagging behind other developed nations in eliminating the virus as a public health threat. The result is that hepatitis C, the most common blood-borne illness in the U.S., contributes to needless illness and thousands of deaths every year.
While countries like England and Australia are on track to meet the World Health Organization’s goal of eliminating hepatitis C as a public health threat by 2030 — and Egypt has already done so — progress in the U.S. has been hamstrung by a fragmented health system and a lack of funding.
