Canada: Drug cure for hep C comes with $95,000 price for Windsor man

Thirty-three years after a van-motorcycle crash put Mike North in hospital for multiple surgeries, he is suffering the devastating health effects from the hepatitis C virus that snuck into his body via blood transfusions.

The virus has attacked his liver, which is now in the most advanced stage of cirrhosis, and he needs a transplant. But before the transplant he must take a recently approved drug that should cure him of hep C, so the virus won’t attack the new liver. Harvoni boasts a cure rate higher than 95 per cent. But there’s a catch: it costs $95,000 for a 12-week treatment, and North has almost no coverage.

“If I don’t get a liver, I’m done,” said North, 62, a former manager at several local automotive plants, who has some savings (including his share of the settlement paid out to victims of Canada’s tainted blood scandal), but only enough to fund his retirement. So his family and medical staff are scrambling to find a way to get him these $1,130 pills as quickly as they can.

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Canada: With hep C, no province is an island

Let the hepatitis C treatment wars begin.

Prince Edward Island has quietly announced that it will fund a costly new treatment for sufferers of the disease – an announcement with potentially dramatic public-policy repercussions.

For patients infected with hepatitis C virus, a potentially deadly liver disease, this is good news. The new antiviral treatments are the closest thing to miracle drugs that have come along in a long while – with a cure rate in the range of 95 to 97 per cent.

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Canada: New Hepatitis C drug Sovaldi needed in B.C., say desperate patients

Hepatitis C patients in B.C. are fighting to get access to new drug Sovaldi, which could cure them, but could also cost the provincial government up to $2.75 billion.

There are currently up to 25,000 British Columbians living with the contagious liver disease, which begins as a mild viral infection lasting a few weeks but can lead to a chronic, lifelong illness.

Desmond McKilligan of Kaslo, B.C., who contracted hepatitis C after receiving tainted blood 45 years ago, says going through life with the virus is exhausting.

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Canada: Campaigns launched to promote awareness of and try to prevent Hep C infections in Guelph area

GUELPH—About 300,000 Canadians have potentially deadly Hepatitis C, including 100,000 in Ontario, but up to 50 per cent don't know they're harboring the harmful viral infection, area Hep C Dr. Chris Steingart told a Guelph audience Thursday.

The Sanguen Health Centre executive director said the infection from tainted blood from a variety of sources, which attacks the liver, can cause physical, mental and emotional injury, yet each year more people are infected than seek treatment. 

"The good news is we can do something about that," Steingart told audience members in the health care/harm reduction field at the launch of an information video and color-coded syringes program. He stressed the local availability of effective Hep C testing and treatment. 

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Canada: $5M Hepatitis C strategy announced by P.E.I. government

P.E.I. is first province to offer newly-approved treatments with cure rates of 95% to 100% 

A new $5-million hepatitis C management strategy unique to P.E.I. was announced by the province's Health and Wellness Minister Thursday morning.

Health Canada recently approved new treatments that can cure the HCV Hepatitis C genotype 1, which is carried by 70 to 75 per cent of Islanders with the contagious liver disease.

It is also the most difficult genotype to treat.

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Canada: Gastrointestinal Society Releases New Video about Hepatitis C

Canada NewsWire
VANCOUVER Feb. 10 2015

Baby boomers need to be tested

VANCOUVER Feb. 10 2015 /CNW/ - As many as 350000 Canadians could be suffering with hepatitis C many of whom are unaware that they are infected thus continuing to spread the virus. Although there is a vaccine to prevent the spread of the hepatitis A and hepatitis B viruses there is no vaccine for hepatitis C. The good news is that with new treatments hepatitis C is now a curable disease.

Many Canadians with hepatitis C do not have any symptoms but for those who do symptoms are generally nonspecific such as mild fatigue or discomfort in the abdomen. However delaying treatment can actually make things worse; the infected individual may feel mostly fine but the virus is causing inflammation which slowly wreaks havoc on the liver eventually leading to cirrhosis severe symptoms and even liver cancer.

"It's very important that individuals with risk factors get tested for the hepatitis C virus" says Dr. James Gray Chair of the Gastrointestinal Society and Canadian Society of Intestinal Research Medical Advisory Council and Gastrointestinal Society co-founder "ideally we can put an end to the spread of hepatitis C by diagnosing treating and curing those who have the disease."

The GI Society has just released a video about hepatitis C to spread awareness and educate Canadians on the risk factors for this disease. The fast-paced whiteboard-style animation also includes information on diagnosis testing treatment management symptoms and more so you can do your part to help stop the spread of this disease. Watch the video online in English at www.badgut.org and in French at www.mauxdeventre.org. Dr. Gray narrates this animation in English and Jean Bruyère narrates in French.

Gail Attara Chief Executive Officer and co-founder of the Gastrointestinal Society who produced the video said "We are grateful for the medical support of Dr. James R. Gray Gastroenterologist and Clinical Professor University of British Columbia and Dr. Ed Tam Hepatologist of the Liver and Intestinal Research (LAIR) Centre. We are also very appreciative of the generous educational grants provided to us by AbbVie Corporation and Janssen Inc. that allowed us to produce this independent video."

Visit www.badgut.org watch and share this video (http://ow.ly/ICVF4); it could help save someone's life.

About the Gastrointestinal Society (GI Society)As the Canadian leaders in providing trusted evidence-based information on all areas of the gastrointestinal tract the Gastrointestinal (GI) Society and the Canadian Society of Intestinal Research are committed to improving the lives of people with GI and liver conditions by supporting research advocating for appropriate patient access to health care and promoting gastrointestinal and liver health.

SOURCEGI Society
PR Newswire
http://www.prnewswire.com/

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Canada: Hepatitis C common in our community

The Cape Breton District Health Authority has seen an increase in the number of hepatitis C cases over the last number of years.

In 2013, the district had 24 per cent of all hepatitis C cases in the province. This translates into approximately five new cases of hepatitis C being diagnosed every month in the district.

The World Health Organization has deemed hepatitis C a “viral time bomb” given that 2-3 per cent of the world’s population (123-170 million people) is infected with this virus.

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HIV rebound linked to liver fibrosis progression in HIV/HCV coinfected

HIV-positive people with hepatitis C virus (HCV) experienced progression to liver fibrosis if their HIV viral load rebounded above 1000 copies/mL or remained detectable on 2 consecutive tests, researchers reported in the January edition of HIV Medicine. Smaller transient HIV "blips," however, were not associated with worsening fibrosis. Optimized antiretroviral therapy, the study authors suggested, may protect the liver.

HIV/HCV coinfected people are known to experience more rapid liver fibrosis progression than people with hepatitis C alone, though the reason for this is not fully understood. SMART and other studies have shown that interruption of antiretroviral therapy (ART) and lack of HIV viral suppression are associated with liver, heart, and kidney disease, but it is not known what level of viremia affects liver fibrosis progression.

Curtis Cooper and fellow investigators with the Canadian Co-infection Cohort Study looked at the relationship between HIV viral load and fibrosis progression in 288 HIV/HCV coinfected people in the cohort. A majority (74%) were men, the mean age was 45 years, and the median CD4 T-cell count was 440 cells/mm³. Most (81%) reported a history of injection drug use and half currently drank alcohol.

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Canada: Endoscope didn't cause hepatitis C outbreak at Kitchener clinic

Investigators from Region of Waterloo Public Health are still trying to figure out why five patients who had colonoscopies at a Kitchener clinic on Christmas Eve in 2013 were infected with hepatitis C. 

"We know that the endoscope that was used that day was not the cause. All of the clients had different endoscopes. So that wasn't what links those five patients together," said Dr. Liana Nolan, the medical officer of health for Waterloo Region, in a interview with Colin Butler on The Morning Edition Wednesday.

"This is strong evidence of patient to patient transmission of hepatitis C due to a lapse in infection prevention and control practices at the clinic," the report said. 

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Canada: Hepatitis C outbreak declared at Kitchener colonscopy clinic

A hepatitis C outbreak has been declared after five patients were diagnosed with the virus following treatment at the Tri-City Colonoscopy Clinic in Kitchener on Christmas Eve in 2013.  

The patients were treated that day along with eight others, according to a report from Waterloo Region Public Health. 

"At this point in time, Public Health has no evidence that there was a risk to clients seen on other days at Tri-City Colonoscopy Clinic," the report said. 

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Canada: Vancouver man denied access to lifesaving new Hepatitis C drugs

A resident of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside is speaking out about the cost of treatments for Hepatitis C. Brody Williams says the only effective options left cost close to $100,000.

Brody Williams has battled the disease for years, undergoing numerous treatments. He’s one of 200,000 Canadians struggling with the virus.

But Williams isn’t getting the drugs. They come with a price tag of $75,000 – $100,000 for a course, and neither the federal Ministry of Indian Affairs, nor B.C.’s medical system will pay because he’s had four different drug treatment protocols already.

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Canada: Cape Breton medical officer calls for more hepatitis C screening

About 5,000 Nova Scotians have contracted the infection. In 2013, Cape Breton recorded the second-highest rate of hepatitis C in the province — or about 24 per cent of all hepatitis C cases. 

SYDNEY — Cape Breton’s medical officer of health is encouraging the screening of patients for hepatitis C as a result of staggering rates of the disease.

Dr. Monika Dutt recently offered the advice to close to 60 doctors taking part in a family medicine gathering in Sydney.

“We have rates that are about double what we’re seeing in the rest of the province,” Dutt said in an interview with The Chronicle Herald on Sunday. “It’s something that been increasing over quite a few years now.”

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Canada: Could a simple blood test combat Saskatchewan’s high rates of hepatitis C?

REGINA – A new study claims that early screening could help save the lives of people infected with what’s considered a silent killer.

Chronic hepatitis C can be treated, or even cured, if diagnosed early. But, detection is difficult because there are often few or no early symptoms.

The research in the Canadian Medical Association Journal states that screening all Canadians for the infection would be cost effective and prevent deaths.

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Canada: Hepatitis C treatments are 'history in the making' at a high cost

BillyBob McPherson lived on Ottawa’s streets as a young teenager before “running away with the carnival.” The 55-year-old doesn’t know exactly when during his colourful life he contracted hepatitis C — he thinks it might have been in Texas in the 1980s where he had surgery and blood transfusions while working as a carny.

But without treatment, he believes, the disease would have ended his life.

Today, he is disease free, a living testament to the wonders of new drugs developed to cure the liver disease with few or no side effects. But he is also an example of the painful realities of the new treatments.

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Canada: B.C. medical researchers offer treatment by prevention for hepatitis C

Innovation: While stressing there is still work to be done when it comes to fighting HIV/AIDS – other provinces have not seen the same progress as B.C., and rates remain high in some First Nations communities – Dr. Montaner said one area he is watching is treatment of hepatitis C.

“I think one of the most exciting developments that is happening is the emergence of new treatment – highly effective, very simple, extremely well tolerated, but unfortunately very expensive – for hepatitis C.” - Julio Montaner, director of the B.C. Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS

Mel Krajden, medical head of hepatitis – clinical prevention services at the B.C. Centre for Disease Control, said between 70,000 and 80,000 British Columbians have hepatitis C, a chronic liver disease.

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