Treatment of hepatitis C virus infection with direct‐acting antiviral agents: 100% cure?

Abstract

Around 71 million people are chronically infected with HCV worldwide. HCV antiviral drug development has been remarkable. The availability of pangenotypic direct‐acting antivirals with excellent efficacy and good tolerability profiles offer a unique opportunity to achieve HCV elimination worldwide. IFN‐free DAA combinations can now cure HCV in more than 95% of patients with HCV infection after 8‐12 weeks of treatment. Programmes to eliminate HCV must include increased screening (risk‐based and universal), linkage to care, as well as increased access to treatment worldwide. In this paper, we will review the available data on recently approved direct‐acting antiviral agents, with sustained virological response that reaches almost 100%.

 

KEYWORDS
chronic hepatitis C, compliance, genotype, HCV elimination, people who inject drugs, screening

 

About Speaker

Tarik ASSELAH

France

City: Paris

Institution: Hôpital Beaujon

Contact: tarik.asselah@bjn.aphp.fr


Biography of Tarik ASSELAH

Tarik Asselah is a Full Professor of Medicine and Hepatology at Hôpital Beaujon, Clichy, France, and at the University Paris Diderot, France. Tarik Asselah is the Head of Viral Hepatitis at INSERM (UMR 1149, Centre de Recherche sur l’Inflammation). He also holds a PhD in virology.

His fields of research include chronic liver diseases, translational medicineand treatment of HBV and HCV infections with new direct-acting antivirals, for which he has been involved as a coordinator/principal investigator in several clinical trials. He coordinated major international clinical trials on HCV Genotype 4 infection.

He has published more than 250 articles in the field of chronic liver diseases in major journals (NEJM, Lancet, Gastroenterology, Hepatology, Journal of Hepatology, etc…). (H-index = 60). He has been selected as a rising star in Gastroenteology in 2009 by the United European Gastroenterology(UEG) in appreciation of his outstanding scientific work. He received awards for his genomic studies on HCV in 2005 from the French Association for the Liver Disease (AFEF), and in 2019 from the Czech Hepatology Society.

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