Treatment for hepatitis C used to have about a 40% success rate. Yeah. That’s low. But the standard drug in the industry just didn’t work for most people who had a positive hepatitis test. Now, though, two new drugs on the market have early success rates of 90%. Yowza.
Who Needs Treatment for Hepatitis C?
Unlike hepatitis B, hepatitis C is not usually sexually transmitted (though sexual transmission is possible). More often, people get it from dirty intravenous or tattoo needles. There is an STD test that checks for hepatitis, but it’s usually for hepatitis B.
The new drugs should come as good news to hepatitis C sufferers:
- Overall, about 51% of infected people get cured.
- People who aren’t cured might need a liver transplant.
- About 270 – 300 million people have hepatitis C worldwide
- Only 25% of those know they’ve got it.
So why is treatment for hepatitis C so tricky? Turns out, the disease often has no symptoms. By the time a person gets a hepatitis test, it may have progressed to a late stage. Plus, some people assume hepatitis testing involves looking only for STDs and may not realize they’re at risk.
The new drugs are called Telaprevir and Victrelis and have been officially approved as treatment for hepatitis C.
