Taiwan targets blood-borne ‘silent killer’ hepatitis C, which affects 58 million people worldwide
- Island has about 400,000 cases of disease, with nearly 7,000 new cases annually, but most of those infected can be asymptomatic and unaware of their condition
- Health education and targeted screening – backed by Gilead Sciences’ research – aims to halt 90 per cent of infections and 65 per cent of HCV deaths by 2025
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Known as a silent killer, hepatitis C (HCV) – a blood-borne disease discovered in 1989 – affects an estimated 58 million people around the world and claimed about 290,000 lives in 2019. It is believed that 10 million people in Southeast Asia are chronically infected.
Although new antiviral medicines can cure nearly 98 per cent of cases, most people infected by the virus can be asymptomatic and unaware of their condition for decades, making diagnosis difficult and halting the spread an even bigger challenge. It also makes the disease more dangerous.
Dr Yu Ming-lung, chair professor at the College of Medicine at Kaohsiung Medical University, in Taiwan, says that single-use syringes – something many people now take for granted in everyday medical procedures – were not widely available in Taiwan 40 years ago, especially in less developed areas. As a result, HCV may have spread among residents in these rural communities through contaminated medical equipment. Mothers with the disease can also pass on the virus to their newborn children.
“There is no vaccine to prevent hepatitis C, so there are only two ways to prevent hepatitis C infection,” Yu says. “The first is health education; you need to identify and avoid risky behaviour. The second is to restrict the source of infection to avoid transmission.”
In 2019, the Taiwanese government reported that there were about 400,000 HCV cases on the island, with nearly 7,000 new infections each year.
