Hope For Hepatitis C Patients In Poor Countries – New Affordable Combination With High Cure Rate Briefs 12/04/2018 • Catherine Saez Share this:Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)Click to print (Opens in new window) A new affordable combination treatment for hepatitis C patients with a 97 percent cure rate was announced today. According to a Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi) press release, the combination treatment including new drug candidate ravidasvir showed safe, and with “extremely high cure rates for patients, including hard-to-treat cases.” Medicines produced by the Egyptian drug manufacturer Pharco Pharmaceuticals were put on trial by DNDi and co-sponsored by the Malaysian Ministry of Health in ten sites in Malaysia and Thailand, the release said. “Agreements signed in 2016 and 2017 enabling the trials and patient scale-up in Malaysia set out a target price of US$300 for a 12-week treatment, an almost 100% drop from existing treatment prices in Malaysia,” it said. According to the release, over 71 million people live with hepatitis C worldwide, with 400,000 deaths a year. Less than 3 million people are on treatment, “with more people infected every year than are put on treatment.” In September 2017, the government of Malaysia issued a “government-use” licence on sofosbuvir patents to allow 400,000 people living with hepatitis C in Malaysia to access generic HCV regimens in public hospitals. Share this:Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)Click to print (Opens in new window) Combat the infodemic in health information and support health policy reporting from the global South. Our growing network of journalists in Africa, Asia, Geneva and New York connect the dots between regional realities and the big global debates, with evidence-based, open access news and analysis. To make a personal or organisational contribution click here on PayPal.