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WHO issues new hepatitis C guidelines, EASL guidelines update forthcoming in September
Liz Highleyman, 2016-05-12 07:20:00
In April, coinciding with the 2016 International Liver Congress in Barcelona, the World Health Organization (WHO) released an update to its Guidelines for the screening, care and treatment of patients with chronic hepatitis C infection. The guidelines promote the transition to newer, more effective direct-acting antiviral (DAA) medications that have the potential to cure most people living with hepatitis C. Also during the meeting the European Association for the Study of the Liver (EASL) announced it would update its hepatitis C treatment guidelines at a special conference in September.
Unlike the AASLD/IDSA American hepatitis C guidelines, the EASL guidelines must offer recommendations that are appropriate for several different countries with varying drug approval schedules and payment mechanisms. The WHO guidelines are even more broad, applying to low- and middle-income countries where new DAA drugs are not yet available, health budgets are limited and many people have the less extensively studied HCV genotypes 4, 5 and 6.
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