Current:Home > reviewsHepatitis C can be cured. So why aren't more people getting treatment? -Infinite Edge Capital
Hepatitis C can be cured. So why aren't more people getting treatment?
View
Date:2025-04-12 11:20:12
Ten years ago, safe and effective treatments for hepatitis C became available.
These pills are easy-to-take oral antivirals with few side effects. They cure 95% of patients who take them. The treatments are also expensive, coming in at $20 to 25,000 dollars a course.
A new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention finds that the high cost of the drugs, along with coverage restrictions imposed by insurers, have kept many people diagnosed with hepatitis C from accessing curative treatments in the past decade.
The CDC estimates that 2.4 million people in the U.S. are living with hepatitis C, a liver disease caused by a virus that spreads through contact with the blood of an infected person. Currently, the most common route of infection in the U.S. is through sharing needles and syringes used for injecting drugs. It can also be transmitted through sex, and via childbirth. Untreated, it can cause severe liver damage and liver cancer, and it leads to some 15,000 deaths in the U.S. each year.
"We have the tools...to eliminate hep C in our country," says Dr. Carolyn Wester, director of the CDC's Division of Viral Hepatitis, "It's a matter of having the will as a society to make sure these resources are available to all populations with hep C."
High cost and insurance restrictions limit access
According to CDC's analysis, just 34% of people known to have hep C in the past decade have been cured or cleared of the virus. Nearly a million people in the U.S. are living with undiagnosed hep C. Among those who have received hep C diagnoses over the past decade, more than half a million have not accessed treatments.
The medication's high cost has led insurers to place "obstacles in the way of people and their doctors," Wester says. Some commercial insurance providers and state Medicaid programs won't allow patients to get the medication until they see a specialist, abstain from drug use, or reach advanced stage liver disease.
"These restrictions are not in line with medical guidance," says Wester, "The national recommendation for hepatitis C treatment is that everybody who has hepatitis C should be cured."
To tackle the problem of languishing hep C treatment uptake, the Biden Administration has proposed a National Hepatitis C Elimination Program, led by Dr. Francis Collins, former director of the National Institutes of Health.
"The program will prevent cases of liver cancer and liver failure. It will save thousands of lives. And it will be more than paid for by future reductions in health care costs," Collins said, in a CDC teleconference with reporters on Thursday.
The plan proposes a subscription model to increase access to hep C drugs, in which the government would negotiate with drugmakers to agree on a lump sum payment, "and then they would make the drugs available for free to anybody on Medicaid, who's uninsured, who's in the prison system, or is on a Native American reservation," Collins says, adding that this model for hep C drugs has been successfully piloted in Louisiana.
The five-year, $11.3 billion program is currently under consideration in Congress.
veryGood! (6)
Related
- South Korea's acting president moves to reassure allies, calm markets after Yoon impeachment
- An Alabama Coal Company Sued for a Home Explosion That Killed a Man Is Delinquent on Dozens of Penalties, Records Show
- What to know about Trump fixer-turned-foe Michael Cohen’s pivotal testimony in the hush money trial
- 2024 WNBA regular season: Essentials to know with much anticipated year opening Tuesday
- Head of the Federal Aviation Administration to resign, allowing Trump to pick his successor
- FDA said it never inspected dental lab that made controversial AGGA device
- Indiana Democratic state Rep. Rita Fleming retires after winning unopposed primary
- Body of New Mexico man recovered from Colorado River in Grand Canyon National Park
- Former Danish minister for Greenland discusses Trump's push to acquire island
- Key Bridge controlled demolition postponed due to weather
Ranking
- US wholesale inflation accelerated in November in sign that some price pressures remain elevated
- Supreme Court denies California’s appeal for immunity for COVID-19 deaths at San Quentin prison
- Alabama follows DeSantis' lead in banning lab-grown meat
- Wildfire in Canada forces thousands to evacuate as smoke causes dangerous air quality
- California DMV apologizes for license plate that some say mocks Oct. 7 attack on Israel
- Nearly 50 homes in Kalamazoo County were destroyed by heavy storms last week
- Primaries in Maryland and West Virginia will shape the battle this fall for a Senate majority
- Third Real Housewives of Potomac Star Exits Amid Major Season 9 Cast Shakeup
Recommendation
Warm inflation data keep S&P 500, Dow, Nasdaq under wraps before Fed meeting next week
North Carolina congressional runoff highlights Trump’s influence in GOP politics
Iowa county jail’s fees helped fund cotton candy and laser tag for department, lawsuit says
‘Judge Judy’ Sheindlin sues for defamation over National Enquirer, InTouch Weekly stories
Louvre will undergo expansion and restoration project, Macron says
Patients face longer trips, less access to health care after Walmart shuts clinics
Tony-nominee Sarah Paulson: If this is a dream, I don't wanna wake up
Taylor Swift will be featured on Eras Tour opener Gracie Abrams' new album, 'The Secret of Us'