Eliminating the hepatitis C virus (HCV) as a public health problem by the end of this decade could enable Pakistan to save billions of dollars by 2050, a modeling study conducted by the University of Bristol has claimed.
The study was led by the researchers at the Bristol University in collaboration with their counterparts at Australia’s Burnet Institute and Pakistan’s Aga Khan University. It was published earlier this week in PLOS Medicine, a peer-reviewed weekly medical journal.
According to the study, Pakistan has one of the highest rates of HCV infection in the world, accounting for more than 10% of the total global HCV infections. Hepatitis C is a blood-borne virus that infects 71 million people worldwide and causes 400,000 deaths each year.
Achieving the World Health Organization’s (WHO) goal of eliminating HCV as a public health problem by 2030 in Pakistan is likely to be highly cost-effective by 2030, cost-saving by 2031, and could help the country to save $9.10 billion by 2050.
Besides saving tons of money, eradicating HCV from the country could help it to save 333,000 precious lives, prevent morbidity due to poor health, and improve the overall health-related quality of life.
Commenting on the study, Dr. Aaron Lim, a research fellow at Bristol University and study’s lead author, said that countries underestimate how much HCV costs their economies and how much they could earn from its elimination.
This study shows that indirect savings and investing in HCV elimination can become cost-saving to the economies in the next 10 years.
Dr. Lim added while a direct investment of $3.87 billion is required to eliminate HCV from Pakistan by 2030, it could help the country to save $9.10 billion by 2050.
Dr. Nick Scott, a research fellow at Burnet Institute and study’s joint lead author, said that this study calls on key international and regional healthcare agencies to support continued investment in HCV elimination as a priority for Pakistan.
