10
views
0
recommends
+1 Recommend
0 collections
    0
    shares
      • Record: found
      • Abstract: found
      • Article: found
      Is Open Access

      The civil society monitoring of hepatitis C response related to the WHO 2030 elimination goals in 35 European countries

      research-article

      Read this article at

      Bookmark
          There is no author summary for this article yet. Authors can add summaries to their articles on ScienceOpen to make them more accessible to a non-specialist audience.

          Abstract

          Background

          People who inject drugs (PWID) account for the majority of new cases of hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection in Europe; however, HCV testing, and treatment for PWID remain suboptimal. With the advent of direct acting antivirals (DAAs) the World Health Organization (WHO) adopted a strategy to eliminate HCV as public health threat by 2030. To achieve this, key policies for PWID must be implemented and HCV continuum of care needs to be monitored. This study presents results of the first monitoring led by civil society that provide harm reduction services for PWID.

          Methods

          In 2019, harm reduction civil society organizations representing focal points of Correlation-European Harm Reduction Network in 36 European countries were invited to complete a 27-item online survey on four strategic fields: use/impact of guidelines on HCV testing and treatment for PWID, availability/functioning of continuum of care, changes compared to the previous year and, the role of harm reduction services and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) of PWID. A descriptive analysis of the responses was undertaken.

          Results

          The response rate was 97.2%. Six countries reported having no guidelines on HCV treatment (17.1%). Twenty-three (65.7%) reported having treatment guidelines with specific measures for PWID; guidelines that impact on accessibility to HCV testing/treatment and improve access to harm reduction services in 95.6% and 86.3% of them, respectively. DAAs were available in 97.1% of countries; in 26.4% of them they were contraindicated for active drug users. HCV screening/confirmatory tests performed at harm reduction services/community centers, prisons and drug dependence clinics were reported from 80.0%/25.7%, 60.0%/48.6%, and 62.9%/34.3% of countries, respectively. Provision of DAAs at drug dependence clinics and prisons was reported from 34.3 to 42.9% of countries, respectively. Compared to the previous year, HCV awareness campaigns, testing and treatment on service providers’ own locations were reported to increase in 42.9%, 51.4% and 42.9% of countries, respectively. NGOs of PWID conducted awareness campaigns on HCV interventions in 68.9% of countries, and 25.7% of countries had no such support.

          Conclusion

          Further improvements in continuum-of-care interventions for PWID are needed, which could be achieved by including harm reduction and PWID organizations in strategic planning of testing and treatment and in efforts to monitor progress toward WHO 2030 elimination goal.

          Related collections

          Most cited references20

          • Record: found
          • Abstract: not found
          • Article: not found

          EASL Recommendations on Treatment of Hepatitis C 2018

            Bookmark
            • Record: found
            • Abstract: found
            • Article: not found
            Is Open Access

            Requirements for global elimination of hepatitis B: a modelling study.

            Despite the existence of effective prevention and treatment interventions, hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection continues to cause nearly 1 million deaths each year. WHO aspires to global control and elimination of HBV infection. We aimed to evaluate the potential impact of public health interventions against HBV, propose targets for reducing incidence and mortality, and identify the key developments required to achieve them.
              Bookmark
              • Record: found
              • Abstract: found
              • Article: found
              Is Open Access

              Global, regional, and country-level coverage of interventions to prevent and manage HIV and hepatitis C among people who inject drugs: a systematic review

              Summary Background People who inject drugs (PWID) are a key population affected by the global HIV and hepatitis C virus (HCV) epidemics. HIV and HCV prevention interventions for PWID include needle and syringe programmes (NSP), opioid substitution therapy (OST), HIV counselling and testing, HIV antiretroviral therapy (ART), and condom distribution programmes. We aimed to produce country-level, regional, and global estimates of coverage of NSP, OST, HIV testing, ART, and condom programmes for PWID. Methods We completed searches of peer-reviewed (MEDLINE, Embase, and PsycINFO), internet, and grey literature databases, and disseminated data requests via social media and targeted emails to international experts. Programme and survey data on each of the named interventions were collected. Programme data were used to derive country-level estimates of the coverage of interventions in accordance with indicators defined by WHO, UNAIDS, and the UN Office on Drugs and Crime. Regional and global estimates of NSP, OST, and HIV testing coverage were also calculated. The protocol was registered on PROSPERO, number CRD42017056558. Findings In 2017, of 179 countries with evidence of injecting drug use, some level of NSP services were available in 93 countries, and there were 86 countries with evidence of OST implementation. Data to estimate NSP coverage were available for 57 countries, and for 60 countries to estimate OST coverage. Coverage varied widely between countries, but was most often low according to WHO indicators ( 200 needle-syringes distributed per PWID and >40 OST recipients per 100 PWID). Interpretation Coverage of HIV and HCV prevention interventions for PWID remains poor and is likely to be insufficient to effectively prevent HIV and HCV transmission. Scaling up of interventions for PWID remains a crucial priority for halting the HIV and HCV epidemics. Funding Open Society Foundations, The Global Fund, WHO, UNAIDS, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Australian National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre, University of New South Wales Sydney.
                Bookmark

                Author and article information

                Contributors
                prof.maticic@gmail.com
                Journal
                Harm Reduct J
                Harm Reduct J
                Harm Reduction Journal
                BioMed Central (London )
                1477-7517
                19 November 2020
                19 November 2020
                2020
                : 17
                : 89
                Affiliations
                [1 ]GRID grid.8954.0, ISNI 0000 0001 0721 6013, Faculty of Medicine, , University of Ljubljana, ; Ljubljana, Slovenia
                [2 ]GRID grid.29524.38, ISNI 0000 0004 0571 7705, Clinic for Infectious Diseases and Febrile Illnesses, , University Medical Centre Ljubljana, ; Ljubljana, Slovenia
                [3 ]Fixpunkt E. V., Berlin, Germany
                [4 ]GRID grid.13652.33, ISNI 0000 0001 0940 3744, Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology, , Robert Koch Institute, ; Berlin, Germany
                [5 ]Free Clinic, Antwerp, Belgium
                [6 ]GRID grid.508487.6, ISNI 0000 0004 7885 7602, Cermes3 (Inserm U988/CNRS 8211/EHESS/Université de Paris), ; Paris, France
                [7 ]GRID grid.418914.1, ISNI 0000 0004 1791 8889, European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, ; Stockholm, Sweden
                [8 ]GRID grid.14758.3f, ISNI 0000 0001 1013 0499, THL, ; Helsinki, Finland
                [9 ]Correlation-European Harm Reduction Network, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
                Author information
                http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4261-0424
                Article
                439
                10.1186/s12954-020-00439-3
                7678126
                33213481
                4a808e76-a89f-43a3-9646-71bf51970846
                © The Author(s) 2020

                Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver ( http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.

                History
                : 2 October 2020
                : 4 November 2020
                Categories
                Research
                Custom metadata
                © The Author(s) 2020

                Health & Social care
                hepatitis c,people who inject drugs,continuum of care,harm reduction,civil society,monitoring

                Comments

                Comment on this article