HCV New Drugs

A growing number of children are being hospitalized with hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection, coinciding with the increase in substance abuse in the US and the disproportionately greater rates in the northeast and southern regions.

Reuters Health
Hep B reactivation common during direct-acting antiviral therapy for hep C
Read today's news or a nice summary of notable headlines published in the latest issue of The Weekly Bull.

Medscape
8 recent reports on prevention, prediction of cirrhosis
February 2, 2018
Chronic liver damage known as cirrhosis has a variety of causes. What remains constant is its potential progression to liver failure. Researchers continue to seek…
View all headlines @ Healio

Healio - In the Journals
SVR for HCV with no advanced liver disease greatly reduces mortality risk
Over the past two decades, deaths caused by liver cancer have increased by 80% , making it one of the fastest-growing causes of cancer deaths worldwide. According to the Global Burden of Disease Study, the most comprehensive worldwide observational epidemiological study to date, 830,000 people died as a result of the disease in 2016 compared to 464,000 people in 1990. This makes liver cancer the second leading cause of cancer deaths worldwide, after lung cancer.

How to Find a Cancer Doctor
Feb 4, 2018
Baby boomers are the hepatitis C generation
Harm reduction scale-up needed to eliminate HCV in people who inject drugs, European model predicts
Keith Alcorn / 01 February 2018
Elimination of hepatitis C among people who inject drugs in Europe will require simultaneous scale-up of direct-acting antiviral treatment, needle and syringe programmes (NSP) and opioid substitution treatment (OST)

NPR
Understanding The Struggle Against Opioid Addiction
NPR's Rachel Martin talks to Medicaid's former Chief Medical Officer Andrey Ostrovsky about his uncle's fatal drug overdose and his efforts to destigmatize opioid addiction.


NAM Publications
The purpose of this Training Manual is to provide information for you and your community. This information can be used to advocate for access to prevention and diagnosis of, and care and treatment for, hepatitis C virus (HCV).

The manual is written by and for people who are not medical specialists. We're treatment activists who learned about HCV because it was a problem for people in our communities.

The primary goals of the Training Manual are to increase advocates’ knowledge about available HCV tests and treatments, particularly in the era of all-oral, highly effective direct-acting antiviral medications that treat all genotypes, and to jumpstart discussions on advocacy strategies that can be used to open up affordable access for more people with HCV.

We designed it to help you understand basic information about HCV and coinfection with HIV: how it's transmitted, how to prevent HCV, how people can find out if they have HCV, what happens to both HIV-negative and HIV-positive people who have HCV, testing and treatment options, drug-drug interactions, and other information used for making treatment decisions.

This Training Manual is organized into short sections, and each section can be presented and shared by a trainer or peer educator with a small group of people in one to two hours. There are discussion points and action steps at the end of each section. The discussion points are intended to start conversations about the key issues raised in each section. The action steps are intended to start conversations about how to translate the key issues into advocacy in the community and to allow participants to find solutions together.

In Case You Missed It - Journal Updates
Original Article: Glecaprevir–Pibrentasvir for 8 or 12 Weeks in HCV Genotype 1 or 3 Infection

Newsletters
NVHR Newsletter

Hep Free NYC Newsletters
By Daryl Luster - January 30, 2018
Lost to care is a phrase that is not commonly mentioned in the community or really anywhere else very much. What does it mean? In the context of hep C, it relates...

HEP Blog
Are we headed toward a historically bad flu season? It’s too early to tell. This year, it could just be that flu season, which is usually at its worst in February, is peaking early. Hospitals across the United States have been flooded with flu patients. Matters have been made worse by national shortages of IV fluids in the wake of Hurricane Maria.

FDA Statement - Impact of saline shortages during this flu season
February 02, 2018
Statement from FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, MD, on ongoing efforts to mitigate impact of saline shortages during this flu season
This year’s flu season has been particularly challenging, with a notable number of cases leading to hospitalization. The season started earlier than usual and seemed to spread across many states quickly. H3N2, the predominant strain of the influenza A virus this season, has led to health complications that are more severe than those seen during an H1N1-predominant season. We recognize that managing the thousands of flu-related hospitalizations has increased the demand for certain saline products – which are commonly used to both hydrate and deliver medications via intravenous routes. As we’ve shared over the past several months, across the country, there remains a shortage of IV saline bags, which have long faced supply issues. These supply issues were worsened by the impact of Hurricane Maria on the medical products manufacturing sector in Puerto Rico, which impacted small volume IV bags. Although the saline shortage is improving, this year’s worse-than-normal flu season and workarounds deployed by health care providers in the wake of this shortage have increased demand for saline and other products.

This flu season's hospitalizations are highest in nearly a decade
by Lena H. Sun February 2 at 2:17 PM
Enjoy the upcoming weekend!