A new breakthrough drug treatment is bringing about record success rates for hepatitis C patients across the country, according to the Canadian Association of Hepatology Nurses.
However, ahead of World Hepatitis Day on July 28, the organization says there’s a shortage of doctors and nurses in Canada with the specialized training necessary to treat the contagious disease.
In the past year, the cure rate in chronic hepatitis C genotype 1 patients jumped from 40–50 percent to 70–80 percent due to a new three-drug treatment method recently approved by Health Canada and now in use across the country.
“The newer medicines add a component to the treatment that makes it more successful. It eradicates the virus quicker and likely easier,” says Cheryl Dale, hepatology nurse practitioner and president of the Canadian Association of Hepatology Nurses.
After five years of clinical testing, the highly anticipated new treatment regime became available last year.
“Having followed the literature for many years I expected that these treatments would be effective, and the more exciting part is looking at what the next generation of medication is coming, because it will be even better,” says Dale.
Hepatitis C affects about 250,000 Canadians, with 3,200–5,000 new cases diagnosed across the country each year. It is the leading cause of liver transplants in Canada and if left untreated can lead to liver fibrosis, cirrhosis, liver cancer, and liver failure, likely to be fatal without a transplant.
Known as a “silent killer,” in many cases those infected with the virus exhibit no symptoms. The most common early symptoms are mild fever, headache, muscle aches, fatigue, loss of appetite, nausea, vomiting and diarrhea. Later symptoms may include dark-coloured urine and stool, abdominal pain, and yellowing of the skin and/or whites of the eyes.
The disease is spread by blood-to-blood contact and is commonly associated with intravenous drug use, transfusions, and poorly sterilized medical equipment.
Hepatitis C has also been known to spread through tattoo and piercing equipment, and personal hygienic products such as razors, and toothbrushes. In 2002, Canadian actress and animal rights activist Pamela Anderson claimed she contracted the disease from a tattoo needle she shared with then-husband Tommy Lee.
More Resources Needed
Dale says although the increasing treatment success is encouraging, many more resources and staff are needed to adequately deal with future patients.
“What we need now is to add resources to increase treatment capacity so more Canadians diagnosed with hepatitis C can be treated and cured. There are not enough doctors and nurses in Canada with the specialized training and knowledge to treat and manage hepatitis C,” she says.
“Hepatitis C treatment is intensive and can be very difficult for patients, so having access to more specialized nursing support is vital in ensuring that more individuals successfully get through it and are cured.”
Currently Ontario, Quebec, British Columbia, Saskachewan, and Yukon cover hepatitis C treatment. Dale stresses that at-risk groups such as baby boomers need to ensure they get tested for the virus.
“[Baby boomers] grew up in an era when there were a number of things that put them at risk, whether it was lifestyle, or contamination through incidental means, blood transfusions, those types of things. They were a generation that just lived at a time when we didn’t know it existed,” she says.
Other at-risk groups that public health officials say should be routinely tested are: injection drug users; those who received blood products prior to July 1992; health care, emergency medical and public safety workers who received accidental exposure to HCV-positive blood; and children born to HCV-positive mothers.
World Hepatitis Day has been marked annually since 2008, to raise awareness about Hepatitis B and C and campaign for its treatment and prevention. According to the Centres for Disease Control, approximately 1 in 12, or 500 million people worldwide, live with chronic viral hepatitis.
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