Alcoy seeks out the latest cases of hepatitis C with an awareness campaign featuring actor Carmelo Gomez.
Thanks to this program, more than 10 undetected cases of hepatitis C have been identified and treated in Alcoy, as it is a silent disease that remains asymptomatic for many years.
This program develops information and outreach activities for people living with hepatitis C and not knowing it, especially among vulnerable groups such as homeless people and injection drug users.
Although Spain leads the world in the number of people treated and cured per million population, hepatitis C still causes four deaths a week in our country.
Late diagnosis of the infection, which occurs in more than a third of cases, means that the damage to the liver caused by it is irreversible.
“Every year in Spain there are 188 deaths due to hepatitis C and we cannot be satisfied; this is almost 10% of road deaths and, like those, they are preventable and avoidable,” says the coordinator of the Alliance to Eliminate Hepatitis C. Viral Hepatitis in Spain (AEHVE), Javier García-Samaniego Alcoy and the 19 other cities included in the #HepCityFree program want to look for people living with hepatitis C and not knowing it, given that it is a silent disease that has no symptoms for many years and, in many cases, by the time of diagnosis, has already caused irreversible liver damage. To this end, and on the occasion of World Viral Hepatitis Day, which will be celebrated on July 28, these cities are going to launch a campaign through their respective media and social media profiles, which will feature the actor Carmelo Gómez, who was cured of hepatitis. C, and whose aim is precisely to raise awareness of the hidden nature of the disease and to facilitate both detection and initiation of treatment.
Carmelo Gomez’s case was similar to many other patients who contracted the virus through blood transfusions before this route was discovered and put an end to in the mid-1990s. Like other patients who may now be infected without knowing it, Carmelo only discovered he had the disease long after he had been infected. In his case, the diagnosis came by chance when he went to donate blood in the late 1990s and was told he couldn’t because he had a liver condition. He had wanted to avoid hepatitis C for some time, but was unable to do so when symptoms began to appear. In the video, he says he felt tired and, above all, very sad because he didn’t know how the disease would progress. The treatment he was given had serious side effects and didn’t cure the disease. Until the advent of direct-acting antiviral drugs changed the course of his life, returning him to normal. Within weeks, he was cured.
The “luck” of patients diagnosed today is that they know that their disease is treatable and that this treatment is effective in almost 100% of cases. Hence the importance of early detection of the infection, before it causes irreversible liver damage. “Fortunately, with Carmelo we arrived in time, and with the diagnostic and treatment options we now have, we should arrive in time for the hundreds of patients who still die every year in Spain from causes related to hepatitis C,” says hepatologist Javier García-Samaniego, coordinator of the Alliance to Eliminate Viral Hepatitis, AEHVE, which brings together scientific societies and patient associations committed to eliminating hepatitis C and promotes the #HepCityFree program, which encourages the involvement of cities in the search for the last cases of hepatitis C.
A search that, according to hepatologists, should be carried out both in the general population, by testing all adults aged 50 to 85 years without a previous negative test for hepatitis C, and in particular in vulnerable groups, where prevalence is higher and access is more difficult. “We are talking about people who are far from the usual health care networks and who can only be reached through decentralized resources and alternative strategies,” explains Javier García-Samaniego. This is where cities can make a big contribution, since, alone or in collaboration with surrounding NGOs, they have greater potential to reach these populations, and especially homeless groups, intravenous drug users and men who have sex with men and those involved in risky behavior, who are the main sources of active infection in Spain.
“Our #HepCityFree Cities program has shown that greater proximity of local organizations to these populations is a strategic advantage in achieving the goal of eliminating the disease,” says García-Samaniego.
In particular, in Alcoy, the development of #hepCityFree has allowed the coordination of municipal and regional social and medical health resources to implement a micro-elimination plan that included the analysis of patients from microbiology and primary care databases, testing and rapid treatment of patients diagnosed in drug treatment centres and screening of residents of various municipal institutions. In particular, Ponts d’Igualtat, GARA, Salut Pública, Creu Roja, Unitat d’Alcohologia, Unitat de Conductes Addictives and Unitat de Prevenció Comunitaria en Conductes Addictives collaborated. Thanks to this programme and the collaboration of the organisations, approximately 2,000 people were identified and 12 cases of hepatitis C were identified, which were treated at the Mare de Déu dels Lliris Hospital in Alcoy.
With almost 170,000 patients treated and cured since 2015, Spain leads the world ranking of people treated and cured per million population. The Ministry of Health estimated the prevalence of the infection at 0.22% in 2018, and today, experts estimate it to be below 0.1%. Despite this, hepatitis C continues to cause four deaths a week in our country. Late diagnosis of the infection, which occurs in more than a third of cases, means that the damage it causes to the liver is irreversible. “Every year in Spain there are 188 deaths due to causes related to hepatitis C, and we cannot be complacent: they represent almost 10% of road deaths, and like those, they are preventable and avoidable,” says García-Samaniego.
“Spain has the opportunity to make history and be the first country among developed countries to put an end to a public health problem like hepatitis C. But to win this battle, we need to take seriously what is called public health policy, that is, we must accompany the treatment of all cases with other actions in terms of measurement, prevention, early diagnosis and care of risk groups,” explains the AEHVE coordinator and head of the hepatology department at HU La Paz, who insists on the key role of cities in all this.
All information about the campaign can be downloaded here: aehve.org
About Hepatitis C
Hepatitis C is an important public health problem due to its incidence, morbidity and mortality, and health care costs. Before the advent of direct-acting antiviral drugs, it was the leading cause of end-stage liver disease and liver cancer in Western countries and the leading indication for liver transplantation.
The most common causes of infection are unsafe injection practices, improper sterilization of medical equipment, and transfusion of blood and blood products before 1990. infected mother to child.
Hepatitis C is a silent disease that does not cause symptoms. There is no vaccine against hepatitis C, but there is a treatment that cures the disease in almost 100% of cases.
About AEKhVE
In February 2017, scientific societies and patient associations committed to the WHO goal of ending viral hepatitis as a public health problem by 2030 created the Alliance to Eliminate Viral Hepatitis in Spain (AEHVE) with the intention of advancing this goal, since Spain already had a Strategic Plan to Combat Hepatitis C (PEEAHC). AEHVE is made up of the Spanish Association for the Study of the Liver (AEEH), the Spanish Society of Digestive Pathology (SEPD), the Spanish Society of Infectious Diseases and Clinical Microbiology (SEIMC), the Spanish Society of Family and Community Medicine (semFYC), the Spanish Society of General Medicine (SEMERGEN), the Spanish Society of General Medicine (SEMG), the Spanish Society of Penitentiary Health (SESP), the Spanish Society of Virology (SEV), and the Spanish Society of Hospital Pharmacy (SEFH). ), Socidrogalcohol (Spanish Scientific Society for the Study of Alcohol, Alcoholism and Other Drugs), CIBERehd (Center for Network Biomedical Research on Liver Diseases), Barcelona Institute for Global Health (IS Global), National Federation of Liver and Transplant Patients (FNETH), Catalan Association of Hepatitis Patients (ASSCAT) and the Madrid Platform for People Affected by Hepatitis C (PLAFHC Madrid).