Unitaid today announced a partnership with FIND to improve diagnostics and treatments for hepatitis C virus (HCV) and make them more affordable and widely available to those in need.

The US $38.3 million project will support the development of better, simpler,  diagnostic tools for HCV where people seek care, and will introduce HCV testing and treatment over three and a half years in HIV programmes in seven countries: Cameroon, Georgia, India, Malaysia, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam.

Until recently, treatment of HCV was complex, lengthy and of limited efficacy. In addition, severe side effects made it difficult for some to complete the full course of treatment, which could take a year or more.

New medicines for the treatment of HCV, in the form of direct acting antivirals (DAAs), have revolutionized HCV treatment in recent years. Combinations of these new medicines, which are generally well tolerated and highly effective, can cure HCV in as little as 12 weeks, compared with the older, year-long regimens.

However, a lack of appropriate diagnostic tools for HCV infection remains a challenge; it is estimated that fewer than 5 percent of HCV-infected people are diagnosed. Existing HCV screening and diagnostic tools are relatively expensive and not suited for the clinical contexts of low- and middle-income countries or for all infections, particularly where patients are co-infected with HIV and HCV. This makes it hard to identify and diagnose – and thus to treat – HCV infection in people living with HIV.

“This is a classic example of a bottleneck where Unitaid can help to unlock markets with the potential to make HCV diagnostics and treatment more affordable and therefore available for millions of people,” said Lelio Marmora, Executive Director of Unitaid.

“The treatment breakthrough offers a tremendous opportunity to address HCV, particularly among HIV/HCV co-infected people, who progress faster to serious disease than HCV mono-infected people,” said Catharina Boehme, Chief Executive Officer at FIND. “Testing and treatment must go hand in hand, and the main obstacle now is the lack of appropriate diagnostic tests. This makes those co-infected with HIV/HCV a priority group for diagnosis and treatment”.

In May 2016, the World Health Assembly adopted, for the first time ever, a strategy on viral hepatitis calling for: 90 percent reduction in new cases, 65 percent reduction in mortality, 90 percent of HCV infections diagnosed, and 80 percent of eligible people with chronic HCV infection treated by 2030.

Today’s new project aims to: make new HCV point-of-care products ready for purchase; make HCV diagnostic tests and treatments available in the health systems of the project countries; lower the prices of HCV testing and treatment; and use findings from the FIND project to drive global and regional policy towards scaling up HCV management. Project implementation will be supported by WHO, which issued ground-breaking policy guidance for countries to scale up access to hepatitis C medicines and diagnostics earlier this year.

About Unitaid

Unitaid is engaged in finding new ways to prevent, treat and diagnose HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria more quickly, more affordably and more effectively.  It takes game-changing ideas and turns them into practical solutions that can help accelerate the end of the three diseases. Established in 2006 by Brazil, Chile, France, Norway and the United Kingdom to provide an innovative approach to global health, Unitaid plays an important part in the global effort to defeat HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, by facilitating and speeding up the availability of improved health tools, including medicines and diagnostics.

About FIND

FIND, established in 2003, is a global non-profit dedicated to accelerating the development, evaluation and use of high-quality, affordable diagnostic tests for poverty-related diseases, including tuberculosis, malaria, HIV/AIDS, sleeping sickness, hepatitis C, leishmaniasis, Chagas disease, Buruli ulcer and infectious diseases with outbreak potential such as Ebola. Over the last decade, FIND has partnered in the delivery of 14 new diagnostic tools, including eight for tuberculosis, and created an enabling environment for numerous others through the provision of specimen banks, reagent development and better market visibility. FIND also supports better access to new diagnostics through implementation, quality assurance and lab strengthening work. FIND has more than 200 partners globally, including research institutes and laboratories, health ministries and national disease control programmes, commercial partners, clinical trial sites, and bilateral and multilateral organizations, especially WHO.