The Executive Yuan yesterday set a goal of eliminating hepatitis as a health threat by 2025 — five years ahead of the WHO’s goal.
The Global Health Sector Strategy on Viral Hepatitis 2016-2021, published by the WHO in 2016, set a 2030 target for eliminating hepatitis B and hepatitis C by having 80 percent of people infected with the virus worldwide treated.
The Executive Yuan adopted the target at its weekly meeting yesterday.
Photo: CNA
An estimated 400,000 people in Taiwan have contracted hepatitis C, with an average of 7,000 new infections each year, Ministry of Health and Welfare official Pu Ruo-fang (蒲若芳) told a news conference in Taipei.
Thanks to the inclusion of a new internal drug to the list of National Health Insurance-covered medicine, the cure rate for hepatitis C has reached 98.5 percent, Pu said.
A total of 9,538 people were cured by the drug in 2017, she said.
This number rose to about 20,000 last year after the government increased subsidies for the drug, she added.
The government this year budgeted NT$6.8 billion (US$219.07 million) for the prescription of the drug under the National Health Insurance system, she said, adding that the drug has cured more than 70,000 people since January 2017.
If 250,000 more people with hepatitis C could be cured by 2025, the nation would be able to achieve the WHO’s target of an 80 percent treatment coverage rate, Pu said.
Hepatitis C is typically spread through blood, she said, adding that it is the second-most prevalent liver disease in the nation, after hepatitis B, and is a primary cause of cirrhosis and hepatoma, she said.
The ministry hopes to combat the disease by leading prevention with treatment, identifying potential carriers by increasing screening coverage and preventing people from contracting or recontracting the disease, she added.
After listening to the ministry’s briefing, Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) said that the goal to eliminate the disease five years ahead of the WHO’s target was commendable.
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