A new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine presents a strategy to reduce hepatitis B and C as a public health problem by 2030. The report calls for a coordinated federal effort to eliminate viral hepatitis, including working with states to build a comprehensive system of care and support for special populations with hepatitis B and C on the scale of the Ryan White system. It also calls for expanding syringe exchange for people who inject drugs, free hepatitis B vaccine in pharmacies and other easily accessible places, and unrestricted treatment for everyone with hepatitis C.
Because the medicines that cure chronic hepatitis C are expensive, the committee recommends a voluntary licensing agreement between the federal government and a patent-holding pharmaceutical company as a way to make the drug more affordable for Medicaid beneficiaries and other underserved patient populations.
