Hepatologists and experts are calling for those born between 1945 and 1975 to be tested for hepatitis C.

Madrid, (EFE).- Today, hepatologists and scientific societies called on the Ministry of Health to carry out diagnostic tests for hepatitis C among the population born between 1945 and 1975, who have never been tested and who are reminded of this every week. Four people die from this disease, despite the fact that there is a treatment that can cure it.

In a statement, the Alliance to Eliminate Viral Hepatitis in Spain (AEHVE) recalled that late diagnosis of the infection occurs in “more than a third of cases” and results in liver damage becoming “irreversible”.

In the general population, the cases that have yet to be treated and cured are people who contracted the infection more than two decades ago and did not know they had it or were not treated at the time, he recalls in the note.

It highlights that the World Health Organization (WHO) itself recommends offering it to all adults who have not been pre-tested as a strategy to achieve elimination goals by 2030.

Likewise, AEHVE adds that the use of artificial intelligence and new diagnostic tools tested during the Covid-19 pandemic “allows for a reduction in the cost of diagnosis,” which makes it necessary for specialists to defend cost-effectiveness in the population aged 50 to 85 years with undiagnosed hepatitis C.

“Every year in Spain there are 188 deaths due to causes related to hepatitis C and we cannot be satisfied: this is almost 10% of road deaths and, like these, they are preventable and avoidable,” concluded AEHVE coordinator Javier García-Saman.