Officials hail publication of hepatitis C strategy
LANCET LETTER: The HPA said the WHO has confirmed receiving the hepatitis C study authored by three top health officials and thanked the nation for its efforts
By Lo Pi and Jonathan Chin / Staff reporter, with staff writer
The Lancet yesterday published Taiwan’s hepatitis C elimination strategy, which the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said marked international recognition of the national effort to suppress the disease.
Minister of Health and Welfare Shih Chung-liang (石崇良), Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Chuang Jen-hsiang (莊人祥) and HPA Director-General Shen Ching-fen (沈靜芬) coauthored the study, which the journal published online as a letter in its correspondence section.
The publication follows an announcement by the Ministry of Health and Welfare late last year that Taiwan had reached its elimination goals ahead of schedule following a 10-year effort, the HPA said.
Front row, from left, Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Chuang Jen-hsiang, Minister Without Portfolio Chen Shih-chung, President William Lai and former vice president Chen Chien-jen hold placards at a news conference in Taipei on Dec. 17 last year.
Photo: CNA
The WHO’s Western Pacific branch has confirmed receiving Taiwan’s hepatitis C study and thanked the nation for its participation in the global public health campaign against the disease, HPA Cancer Prevention and Control Division Director Hsieh Pei-chun (謝佩君) said.
The report is still undergoing internal review by the regional office and it remains unclear when the official results would be released, Hsieh said.
Taiwan had identified an estimated 92.4 percent of people with chronic hepatitis C by December last year and reported a 92.7 percent treatment rate among those diagnosed, exceeding the WHO’s diagnosis and treatment targets and Path to Elimination gold-tier benchmarks, which are achieving a 90 percent diagnosis rate and an 80 percent treatment rate by 2030, the HPA said.
The HPA since September 2020 has offered free hepatitis B and C screenings for people aged 45 to 79 and expanded eligibility to include people aged 39 to 79 in August last year, it said.
The National Health Insurance Administration has offered coverage for oral hepatitis C drugs since 2017 and waived all requirements related to hepatic fibrosis severity to encourage early treatment, the HPA said.
Taiwan achieved a 95 percent hepatitis C treatment rate across all high-risk groups, including people undergoing dialysis or methadone treatment, as well as people with HIV, while the national harm mitigation program provides sterilized needles, it said.
It has implemented rigorous standards to ensure blood supply and medical needles are not contaminated by the virus, the HPA said.
Taiwan is expanding its healthcare resources in mountainous regions, as well as improving the integration of national, local and community-level care, and creating a centralized monitoring network for health to support effective policy, it said.
It has also rolled out a hospital monitoring program to track long-term mortality trends associated with chronic liver disease and cirrhosis caused by hepatitis B and C, it said.
The measures have contributed to reductions in liver cancer incidence and mortality figures in the past few years, the HPA added.
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