Hepatitis C Can Be Cured in Canada, But This Life-Saving Drug Is Outrageously Expensive

published on January 24, 2016 by Jake Kivanc, in VICE News

It is "insane" that Canada continues to see a rise in transmissions of Hepatitis C, despite the fact that there is a cure, say health researchers.

But thanks to political inaction, and the prohibitive cost of the live-saving drugs, Canadians continue to contract the life-threatening virus.

By official estimates, the population carrying Hepatitis C in Canada is around 250,000, but experts speculate this number is tens to hundreds of thousands higher due to poor tracking of and testing for the virus. In America, the virus results in more deaths every year than HIV. And while Canada's range of Hepatitis C cases sits in the ballpark for most advanced nations, the disease is still ravaging the Canadian drug community.

It's currently hard to figure out just how many die from Hepatitis C — Canadian mortality statistics haven't been published since 2007, when 487 people died from virus. The problem with narrowing down deaths, however, is that the disease goes undiagnosed so often that its effects, including liver damage and overall deterioration of a person's health, can be, what experts call, a "silent killer."

In Canada, the virus disproportionately affects intravenous drug users. By 2011 estimates, around 66 percent of all current, and 28.5 percent of former injectable drug users tested positive for the virus. In some areas, that number is much higher: for example, when Insite, North America's only safe injection site, first opened in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside in 2003, 88 percent of its visitors tested positive for Hepatitis C.

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BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS

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Hepatitis C Can Be Cured in Canada, But This Life-Saving Drug Is Outrageously Expensive

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