Hepatitis C patients who use a new oral drug that is to be covered by the National Health Insurance (NHI) system next year will become resistant to it if they stop taking it for more than seven days, a physician said yesterday.
It is estimated that there are more than 550,000 people in Taiwan who are infected with chronic hepatitis C, which is the leading cause of cirrhosis and liver cancer.
The current standard treatment for hepatitis C is interferon therapy, or a combination therapy that includes interferon.
After new oral drugs — with a shorter course of treatment, a cure rate of up to 90 percent and fewer side effects — were developed in 2013, the Ministry of Health and Welfare said that the drugs would be covered by the NHI system starting next year.
Yu Ming-lung (余明隆), a physician from Kaohsiung Medical University Chung-Ho Memorial Hospital, said it is important that people who take the new hepatitis C oral drugs take them regularly and according to their doctors’ prescriptions.
He said the prevalence of hepatitis C in Taiwan is about 3.3 percent, and there is no vaccine against the infection, but approximately 20 percent of sufferers will develop liver cirrhosis or liver failure, and about 1 to 4 percent might develop liver cancer.
Yu said that most people who are living with chronic hepatitis C infection have RNA virus levels (viral load) of 100,000 to 10 million units, and taking the oral drugs can significantly reduce the viral load, as well as greatly increase the cure rate, if they complete the course of treatment.
However, because the new oral drugs cause few side effects, some patients will forget whether they have taken the drug, Yu said, adding that several cases in other countries showed that if people stopped taking the drugs for more than seven days then their body became resistant to it.
Yu urged people with hepatitis C to take their medication regularly and according to their doctors’ prescriptions, no matter what type of therapy they are on, because arbitrarily stopping medication can lead to more difficulty in curing the disease, but is also a waste of the nation’s medical resources.
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) today issued a sea warning for Typhoon Fung-wong effective from 5:30pm, while local governments canceled school and work for tomorrow. A land warning is expected to be issued tomorrow morning before it is expected to make landfall on Wednesday, the agency said. Taoyuan, and well as Yilan, Hualien and Penghu counties canceled work and school for tomorrow, as well as mountainous district of Taipei and New Taipei City. For updated information on closures, please visit the Directorate-General of Personnel Administration Web site. As of 5pm today, Fung-wong was about 490km south-southwest of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan's southernmost point.
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