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. 2023 Oct 31;15(11):2199.
doi: 10.3390/v15112199.

Country-Wide HCV Elimination Strategies Need to Reach Older Patients in the General Population: The Italian Experience

Pietro Torre  1 , Roberta Coppola  1 , Mario Masarone  1 , Marcello Persico  1
Affiliations

Country-Wide HCV Elimination Strategies Need to Reach Older Patients in the General Population: The Italian Experience

Pietro Torre et al. Viruses. .

Abstract

HCV infection is still a major burden worldwide, and most countries are not on track to meet the WHO 2030 elimination goal. The current challenge is to identify individuals to be treated. In this study, we will describe the trend of new DAA prescriptions and the changes over time in terms of the characteristics of patients starting antiviral therapy in our unit. Data of 1646 hepatitis C patients who started therapy during the period of 2015-2022 regarding annual number of prescriptions, age, gender, nationality, HCV genotype, provenance, and liver disease severity were analyzed. We observed a peak in the number of new prescriptions in 2018 and a downward trend starting in 2019. Patients from the general population, centers for addictions, and prison differed significantly. The mean age in the general population remained above 60 years, the percentage of patients from centers for addictions and prison increased and, after 2016, there was no significant change in the percentage of patients with F3-F4 fibrosis. As HCV screening and linkage-to-care pathways seem to be already well implemented and successful in centers for addictions and in prisons, efforts need to be focused on those of older age in the general population. To carry this out, the more structured involvement of different health professionals must be figured out.

Keywords: HCV screening; hepatitis C; linkage-to-care; viral hepatitis elimination.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Number of DAA prescriptions from year to year (2015–2022).
Figure 2
Figure 2
Mean age and standard deviation (SD) of patients starting antiviral therapy for HCV in each year (2015–2022).
Figure 3
Figure 3
Total number of patients, expressed as percentage of age class, starting antiviral therapy for HCV in each year (2015–2022).
Figure 4
Figure 4
Percentage of patient type (general population, centers for addictions, or prison) starting antiviral therapy for HCV in each year (2015–2022).
Figure 5
Figure 5
Percentage of patients with F3–F4 fibrosis starting antiviral therapy for HCV in each year (2015–2022).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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