A new drug has been made available for the treatment of Chronic Hepatitis C Infection.

by Newsdesk | 27th January 2014

o The European Commission has granted marketing authorisation for Sovaldi® by Gilead.

o The drug can offer high cure rates of more than 90%

o Treatment useable by patients who aren’t suitable for other forms of medication.

In the UK Hepatitis C (HCV) is estimated to affect 215,000 adults and is a major cause of liver cancer and liver transplantation. Trends on HCV-related deaths in England appear to show a year on year increase with HCV-related deaths outstripping reported HIV-related deaths for the first time in 2012.

Up until now standard treatment for HCV involved treatments that last up to 48 weeks, with a peg-IFN/RBV-containing regimen, which may not be suitable for certain types of patients.

Hepatitis is a virus that can infect and damage the liver and can be transmitted in the blood, saliva, semen and vaginal fluids.

The most common method of transmission in the UK is through shared needles to inject illegal drugs, less commonly people can get HCV through unprotected sex.

The new treatment from Gilead is a once-daily oral nucleotide analogue polymerase inhibitor for the treatment of chronic hepatitis C (CHC) infection in adults, in combination with other agents.

“Unlike many chronic diseases, hepatitis C can be cured. For many HCV patients, however, for a number of reasons, many HCV patients have not currently achieved a cure and often progress to end-stage liver disease or liver cancer,” said Dr Graham Foster, Professor of Hepatology, Queen Mary University of London. “With high cure rates across a broad range of patients and a short duration of therapy, sofosbuvir is a very welcome therapeutic advance that will increase the number of patients who can be treated and ultimately cured.”

For more information visit: gilead.com

If you've got a sexual health query please visit: noexcuseproject.co.uk