They are asking the Ministry of Health to conduct diagnostic tests for hepatitis C among the population born between 1945 and 1975.

The group’s coordinator, Javier García-Samaniego, noted that “188 deaths every year, 10 percent of deaths due to road accidents, are too many deaths to be satisfied, especially when it is in our power to prevent them.” In this regard, he cited existing treatments that can cure the disease “almost 100 percent of the time,” which also prevent the damage it causes to the liver over the years if treated early.

The recommendation to conduct diagnostic tests was included in World Health Organization (WHO) in its latest update on the global strategies needed to accelerate the elimination of hepatitisHowever, this indication is only observed in some autonomous communities, such as Galicia, and would require a new update of the Ministry of Health Guidelines for Screening of HCV Infection, including screening recommendations for the general population at this age, without linking it to risk factors, as is currently the case.

The inclusion of artificial intelligence and diagnostic strategies successfully tested during the Covid pandemic also allows for cheaper diagnostics, increasing the ability to find undetected hepatitis C in the general population. It is believed that in Spain there are still 20,000 People with Hepatitis C Who Don’t Know They Have the Infection.

In addition to identifying undetected or lost cases in the general population, another challenge is to actively seek cases among the most vulnerable groups, people who are far from the usual health care pathways and who can only be reached through decentralized resources and alternative strategies.

To this end, they work within the Hepatitis C Free Cities programme, in collaboration with city councils and NGOs, to develop actions aimed at vulnerable groups of the populationespecially homeless people, intravenous drug users and men who have sex with men and who engage in risky behaviour, who are the main sources of active infection in Spain. Actions on these characteristics and/or awareness-raising and sensitisation programmes are currently being developed or implemented in 20 Spanish cities.

On the occasion of World Viral Hepatitis Day, which will be celebrated on July 28, these cities are set to launch a campaign featuring actor S.Armelo Gomez Cured of Hepatitis CHis case was similar to that of many other patients who had acquired the virus through blood transfusions before the virus was discovered in the mid-1990s and put an end to that route of infection, and therefore fits the profile of patients in the 50- to 85-year-old population in whom hepatologists insist on testing.