WHO HAS ACCESS TO HEPATITIS C TESTING? LIBERATE OUR DIAGNOSTICS!
ISSUE BRIEF HERE:
https://tinyurl.com/t29pgk9
Accurate, high-quality data on the hepatitis C virus (HCV) continues to be a struggle for countries that are scaling up testing services and linking people to treatment and care, as part of implementing their national hepatitis plans. There is very little in-country information about the availability and pricing of HCV diagnostics and how licensing and pricing barriers may affect how governments determine coverage of testing services. Crowd-sourced data from the free, public database, mapCrowd, has been collected by 60 mapCrowd contributors.
Data includes estimated out-of-pocket costs compared to monthly GNI per capita, price of pangenotypic direct-acting antivirals (DAAs) by select countries, estimated cost to test-and-treat per country, and the availability and pricing in public and private sectors of the following HCV tests:
- Lab-based enzyme immunoassays (EIAs)
- Antibody rapid diagnostics tests (RDTs)
- Dried Blood Spot (DBS) testing
- Quantitative and qualitative HCV viral load polymerase chain reaction (PCR) • Nucleic acid testing (NAT) DNA/RNA platforms
- Core antigen
- Genotyping
- FibroScan liver disease staging tests
Advocacy demands include:
- Simplify the diagnostics pathway and increase patients’ linkage and retention in care
- Ensure transparency of pricing on the total costs of diagnostics and service/maintenance costs for instrument-based platforms
- Prioritize the development of dried blood spot protocols and submit them for stringent regulatory authority approval; and point-of-care RNA and HCV core antigen tests with acceptable diagnostic accuracy
- Include community and civil society organizations in the design, research, and implementation of diagnostics, which could address affordability, simplicity, and community-friendly testing settings.
More information about HCV diagnostics is available in the Activist Guide to Hepatitis C Virus Diagnostics and training curriculum, available at:
http://www.treatmentactiongroup.org/content/activist-guide-hepatitis-c-virus-diagnostics-10-2019