Ruchika Sharma
Decision Resources Group, USA
Title: The Global Burden of Hepatitis C in relation to Sustainable Development Goals 2030 targets
Biography
Biography: Ruchika Sharma
Abstract
Introduction: Despite being an international public health challenge, hepatitis has not been prioritized until recently. The WHO estimates 130-150 million people worldwide, living with chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection and the number is increasing despite improved treatment1. In 2016, the WHO released a global health sector strategy on viral hepatitis based on the Sustainable Development Goals 2030 report1. It enlists targets to be achieved with regard to HCV incidence, diagnosis and treatment, taking 2015 as the base year. This analysis aims to understand the global impact of successful achievement of the WHO targets on viremic prevalent cases.
Methods: HCV viremia is defined as the presence of HCV RNA in the serum. A systematic review of published literature was carried out to extract prevalence, incidence, and genotype distribution data for 45 countries, in addition to an analysis of NHANES data2. Extracted estimates were trended to 2015 based on current diagnosis and drug treatment scenarios. When country-specific studies were unavailable, results were extrapolated from studies based in comparable populations. When gender-specific results were unavailable, gender-specific results from other studies were used after making any appropriate adjustments to reflect differences in age-adjusted risk. Percentage changes according to the WHO targets were applied to 2015 to arrive at the number of cases in 2020 and 2030.
Results: Between 2015 and 2030, there is a considerable decrease in the number of prevalent viremic cases modeled according to the WHO targets. In 2020, the viremic prevalence is highest in Africa (1.54) and lowest in North America (0.76). In 2030, the viremic prevalence ranges from 0.15 in North America to 1.0 in Africa.