In August 2012, the big news in the hepatitis community was a new set of CDC guidelines recommending that all Baby Boomers (those born between 1945 and 1965) receive a hepatitis C test. According to the CDC, at that time, more than two million U.S. baby boomers were infected with hepatitis C (HCV), representing approximately 75% of all HCV-infected individuals and the vast majority of the 15,000 people who would die of HCV-related causes that year.
The goal of universal testing for this age cohort was to help identify more than 800,000 additional HCV-infected individuals, who had not yet been diagnosed.
A lot has changed in the last two and a half years. "With the new treatments, people are excited about being treated and cured," Alan Franciscus, founder and executive director of the Hepatitis C Support Project and editor-in-chief of the HCV Advocate, told BioPharma Dive in an interview. "Prior to the approval of interferon-free therapies, there was usually a reluctance from patients—maybe a better word is fear—of treatment."
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