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VIDEO: WHO expert discusses lessons learned in the global hepatitis response
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VIENNA — In this exclusive video from the International Liver Congress 2019, Philippa Easterbrook, MD, senior scientist of the Global Hepatitis Program within the HIV Department at the WHO headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, discusses a symposium focused on sharing “good practices and lessons learned” in the global viral hepatitis response.
“Although there are many champion countries that are moving fast toward elimination plans including Egypt, Mongolia, Georgia, Australia and even Rwanda, there are still many countries that are just establishing their national hepatitis response,” Easterbrook told Healio Gastroenterology and Liver Disease. “We felt that it would be extremely helpful for these countries as they plan their program response to have the advantage of learning lessons from other countries and their experiences in scaling up their hepatitis response.”
Easterbrook listed some of the key good practices showcased during the symposium including the importance of community engagement, integrating hepatitis testing and treatment into harm reduction programs, simplified algorithms in diagnosis and management, and ways to improve linkage to care.
Additionally, she discussed a tool kit the WHO developed for training the health workforce for task shifting and sharing to improve hepatitis management at the primary care level.
“These are some of the good practice principles that we want to showcase, we want to share with countries, so that they can be inspired and learn from the experiences of others as they start to scale up their responses,” Easterbrook said. “We’re going to be expanding on this to complete the framework of all the good practice principles we’ve identified — 16 in all — and we’ll be launching this product for World Hepatitis Day.”
Reference: EASL-WHO symposium: Best practices and lessons learned from global viral hepatitis scale-up. Presented at: International Liver Congress; April 10-14, 2019; Vienna, Austria.
Disclosure: Easterbrook reports no relevant financial disclosures.