Canada’s uneven response to hep C

Erasing hepatitis C: Is Canada doing enough?

More work needed to screen baby boomers at higher risk of carrying the disease, ensure antiviral drugs reach patients, say UAlberta researchers.

By Bryan Alary on March 23, 2016

Michael Houghton’s “race” started 35 years ago in a San Francisco-area lab where he was part of the team that first identified hepatitis C. In those days, the early 1980s, scientists knew the virus existed—patients were getting sick because of blood transfusions—but it was labelled for what it wasn’t: “non-A” or “non-B” hepatitis. “It ended up taking seven years—a lot of false leads, a lot of frustration,” remembers Houghton, now Canada Excellence Research Chair in Virology at the University of Alberta.

One of the major challenges with hepatitis C is many people don’t know they are carriers for years—sometimes decades—after becoming infected, often learning of their diagnosis after showing symptoms of liver damage. The new antivirals are so expensive that in many cases provincial pharmacare programs only cover patients with more pronounced symptoms. “It’s almost like we’re going to wait until you get very sick before we treat you. That’s never ideal,” says Houghton. “The treatment cures hep C, not liver cancer, and that’s a very real risk when you delay treatment.”

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