Chronic Hepatitis C – in Risk Groups in Eastern Europe: a Global Public-health Problem

Abstract

Hepatic diseases are the sixth most common cause of death in the European Union. The World Health Organization has adopted a global strategy to eliminate viral hepatitis as a serious public health threat by 2030. Approximately one quarter of patients with CHC (chronic hepatitis C) has developed cirrhosis of the liver. It is a precancerosis with a high risk of developing hepatocellular carcinoma. From an epidemiological point of view, injection drug use (IDU) is the most significant way of transmitting HCV infection. Patients with an increased risk of transmitting HCV infection, active IDUs, homosexuals with risky sexual practices, women planning to conceive, patients undergoing hemodialysis and prisoners should all be treated in preference. This population of patients is threatened by an addiction itself as well as by infections, repeated reinfections or mixed infections, concomitant mental disorders or diseases, and multiple associated disorders. To the fulfilment of the WHO strategy on HCV elimination/eradication would certainly contribute a nationwide screening in individual European countries and active collaboration with general practitioners who could treat patients with HCV by themselves - that is, without help of specialists, with pan-genotypic drugs.