VIDEO: Reevaluating 'quest' toward HCV elimination after COVID-19
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In this video, Nancy S. Reau, MD, FAASLD, AGAF, discussed one of the themes from The Liver Meeting Digital Experience: the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on hepatitis C care.
Reau, the Richard B. Capps Chair of Hepatology at Rush University in Chicago, highlighted one oral abstract that detailed a mathematic model evaluating the current global status of HCV screening and linkage to care, including areas of success and those that require more attention.
“It’s a really nice global map for resetting or reevaluating our question towards elimination,” Reau said.
Although the study was designed to “set the stage” pre-COVID-19, several other abstracts presented at The Liver Meeting Digital Experience emphasized the fact that COVID-19 set physicians and researchers back in their quest to hit the WHO HCV elimination targets.
“There were some models looking at the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on screening and new infections, recognizing that disruption of harm reduction services in addition to stress and loss of access really increased new HCV as well as decreased the linkage to care and screening of established HCV,” Reau said. “Unfortunately, we’re going to have our work to do as we start to recover from the pandemic, [such as] increasing screening rates, identifying appropriate patients for linkage and trying to get back on those WHO elimination targets, which we have definitely steered far from.”
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