Progress and Challenges in a Pioneering Hepatitis C Elimination Program in the Country of Georgia, 2015 –2018

This report describes progress in Georgia ’s hepatitis C elimination program and highlights efforts to promote HCV screening and treatment initiation on a national scale. Novel strategies, such as reflex HCV core antigen testing to confirm infection for persons who screened anti-HCV positive were implemented. Reflex testing helped to iden tify greater numbers of persons with active infection, however, treatment initiation rates among those identified with active infection decreased. Georgia has made progress towards eliminating hepatitis C, treating over 50,000 persons, approximately one-third of the number infected, and achieving cu re for 98.5% of those tested. However, identifying infected persons and linking them to care remains challenging, novel approaches to increase diagnostic testing can have unintended consequences further down the care cascade.

Source: Journal of Hepatology - December 3, 2019 Category: Gastroenterology Authors: Francisco Averhoff, Shaun Shadaker, Amiran Gamkrelidze, Tatia Kuchuloria, Lia Gvinjilia, Vladimer Getia, David Sergeenko, Maia Butsashvili, Tengiz Tsertsvadze, Lali Sharvadze, Jaba Zarkua, Beth Skaggs, Muazzam Nasrullah Source Type: research