Egypt: Locally manufactured Sovaldi to be released soon

CAIRO: The Egyptian market will receive a new batch of the hepatitis C treatment medication Sovaldi next June after being manufactured locally, Youm 7 reported Sunday.

Pharmed Healthcare Executive Director, Mohamed Mabrouk, said that his firm will deliver 500,000 bottles after being manufactured with local chemical materials.

“This step will give the Egyptian market an unprecedented motive,” he said.

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Egypt: New hep C treatment to hit Egyptian market in May

CAIRO: A new drug for treating hepatitis C will be available on the Egyptian market early next month, Health Minister Adel al-Adawy announced Monday.

A 30,000-dose shipment of Olisio, the new treatment, has arrived in Egypt, and is currently undergoing tests before release on the market, the head of National Committee for the Control of Viral Hepatitis Waheed Doss told Youm 7.

Doss added that once Olisio is approved, the treatment protocol will be changed and the new drug will be used simultaneously with the currently-used American-made Sovaldi.

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Egypt: Egypt has highest infection level of hepatitis C: study

According to a new study by researchers from Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar (WCMC-Q) and London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in the UK, Egypt has the highest infection level of the disease in the world. About 15% of the population carry HCV, with at least 100,000 new cases every year, but the proportion of these new infections that occur through different transmission routes is not well understood. This study is the first, for any country, to estimate the number of new cases of HCV as a consequence of mother-to-child (vertical) transmission.

The authors estimated that in 2008, between 3,000 and 5,000 new cases of the infection were caused by this transmission route, which can occur during pregnancy, childbirth and the postpartum period from an infected mother to her child.

In addition, the findings show that mother-to-child transmission is an important transmission route among children under five years of age, contributing between a third and a half of new cases in that age group in Egypt.

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Egypt: Mothers infecting children with hepatitis C in Egypt

Up to 5,000 Egyptian children a year could be infected by hepatitis C through their mothers.

A new study suggests that between 3,000 and 5,000 Egyptian children could be infected with hepatitis C virus (HCV) annually through mother-to-child transmission¹.

This vertical transmission, which is still not fully understood, is believed to occur during pregnancy, child birth or during the postpartum period, most probably from cracked nipples.

The scientists from the Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar (WCMC-Q) and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine in the UK focused on Egypt, which has the highest incidence of HCV worldwide, with an estimated 14.7% of the population carrying the virus and up to 100,000 new infections occurring each year, according to WHO.

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