Hepatitis C: National Governments Need to Respond There are up
to 170 million people living with hepatitis C infection
worldwide. In March 2010 the World Health Assembly, the
governing forum of the World Health Organization (WHO), adopted
a viral hepatitis resolution urging member states to take steps
to address this public health problem. The U.S. Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention reports that hepatitis C has
superseded HIV as a cause of death in the United States. Between
1999 and 2007, deaths from hepatitis C increased to more than
15,000, whereas deaths from HIV declined to less than 13,000.1
In the regional context, Southeast Asia and India also see more
deaths from viral hepatitis infection than from HIV.2 In high-
income countries, the standard of care for treating hepatitis C
is combination therapy with pegylated interferon (an injectable
medicine) and ribavirin (an oral pill), with some patients being
treated by adding newer regimens of expensive oral pills to the
standard of care. In most of