Health minister receives Hep-C‎ unified treatment protocol

Egypt's Health Minister Ahmed Emad el din Rady has received the Hepatitis C unified treatment protocol which was achieved by the National Committee for the Control of Viral Hepatitis.

The minister has tasked the committee in its recent meeting to quickly achieve the protocol.

The protocol divides patients into two groups according to difficulty of their treatment of the Hepatitis C virus.

Every category will have a specific treatment protocol to ensure high cure rates, member of the national committee Waheed Doos said.

The protocol will be distributed at all C virus treatment centers and hospitals, including university hospitals nationwide, he added.

Patients who have suffered a setback after receiving treatment by Sovaldi ranged between 10 to 20 percent, Doos said.

The cure rates hit 80 to 90 percent, he added.

Egypt has the largest burden of HCV (Virus C) infection in the world, with a 10% prevalence of chronic HCV infection among persons aged 15–59 years, according to the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC).