Summary
We created and analysed a dataset from 12 countries with 66,640 participants with chronic hepatitis C virus infection. We determined that about 97% of those with viraemic infection had 1,300 IU/ml or more of circulating virus at the time of diagnosis. While current diagnostic tests can detect as little as 12 IU/ml of virus, our findings suggest that increasing the level of detection closer to 1,300 IU/ml would maintain good test accuracy and will likely enable development of more affordable portable tests for use in low- and middle-income countries.
URL: https://www.journal-of-hepatology.eu/article/S0168-8278(19)30125-4/fulltext