The FINANCIAL — Georgia continues working on its Hepatitis C elimination program. Initial results of the program are already visible. As Vice Minister of Health Valeri Kvaratskhelia said during a special briefing, out of 32 patients 23 have shown blood tests with negative indicators for Hepatitis C. As the Vice Minister says, this does not mean that the patients can stop treating themselves with the ant-virus medication altogether. The patients ought to undergo the medication program completely, Kvaratskhelia says.
The second stage of the program is due to start in the Fall. The private company Gilead will continue treating its patients with a more modern medication Harvoni, which has won US FDA approval last year. The treatment of the Georgian patients with Harvoni will start in November. This medication will be completely free of charge for the patients participating in the Program.
An international conference called “Hepatitis C Elimination Program in Georgia: Future Development Ways” was held on July 4th at the National Center for Disease Control.
The Conference was held within the framework of international group Global Alliance and the Georgian government’sagreement to work toward improving the Healthcare in the country, signed on April 6. Labor and health Minister David Sergeenko opened the conference.
President of Global Alliance Doctor Jean-Elie Malkin, NCDC director, Doctor Amiran Gamkrelidze and the US Center for Disease and Control Prevention’s Georgian representative Doctor Juliet Morgan were present at the conference.
Global Alliance’s invited experts, professors Stanislav Polis (from Paris Medical School’s hepatology department) and Yazdan Yazdanpanah (from Paris Medical School’s infectious diseases department) were invited to give their presentations on the topic “Toward Eliminating Hepatitis C: Strategy and Optimization.” The respective parties also presented their research titled “Research on Efficiency of Expenditures of integrated Interventions on AIV and C Hepatitis Epidemics: Example of Georgia.”
According to David Sergeenko, the conference was dedicated to several issues, the most important among which was the assessment of the on-going steps toward Hepatitis C elimination and its evaluation.
“Our initial step was to work on implementation of the universal healthcare and its activation. The next step was to create a totally unique Program of Hepatitis C Elimination, which is an unprecedented program globally. At this stage I can tell you that we are working on the most important part of the universal healthcare – that is primary healthcare,” Sergeenko said.
“I’d like to stress that the next step will be the reform of primary healthcare. It happened that during the last years or rather decades there was not paid enough attention to the primary healthcare and the whole focus was concentrated on the hospital sector. It is clear that such attitude consists several risks, as primary healthcare is not fulfilling its part, which in ideal situation is to manage 80% of medical needs and only 20% should be given to the stationary treatment,” Health Minister David Sergeenko stated.
“We are already undergoing consultations with such international experts as Global Alliance on the subject of primary healthcare in Georgia,” Sergeenko added.
Global Alliance president Jean-Elie Malkin stated that Georgia has become a global model for successful Hepatitis C elimination.
“The country has already made the first step and has impressive results in this regard. The next step of the project will be the successful implementation of the primary healthcare in Georgia and raising the overall quality level of healthcare in the country,” Jean-Elie Malkin said. “We express our full support to the government of Georgia in regard of this project,” Malkin added.
At the conference an engaging discussion was held among the participants, including NCDC and the ministry and the CDC, and the Hepatitis C elimination program leaders.
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