HCV / Hepatitis

In thinking about the international and national public health campaigns to eliminate hepatitis, is general awareness of the disease enough to motivate treatment-hesitant hepatitis patients to accept clinical care, or does there need to be a greater commitment beyond that?

This week, why measles and vibrio vulnificus infections are seeing outbreaks and increases in incidence rates; a medical association recommends fecal microbiota-based therapies for recurrent or severe C difficile; and an antiviral reduced a median time-to-symptom resolution.

Study exposes the adherence gap in HCV direct-acting antiviral therapy among people who inject drugs.

Shortage in hepatitis b virus (HBV) clinical trials within the WHO African region.

The federal government is working to provide greater access to testing and treatment.

Accessibility to direct-acting antivirals affecting low and middle-income countries.

Results highlight the benefit of achieving sustained virological response with DAAs for decreasing patients’ risk of carotid atherosclerosis and peripheral artery disease, especially among those with severe fibrosis.

Study reveals HEV adaptation during treatment.

GSK’s bepirovirsen received this designation, and the company has its sights on the therapy potentially providing a functional cure for the millions of people around the world who are affected by this form of viral hepatitis.

This month is a time to reflect on the past, but understand there remains issues that need to be addressed today.

HCV seroprevalence and antigen positivity were both low, suggesting universal birth cohort screening may not be necessary or cost-effective.

This week, a study advocates enhancing hospital cleaning protocols to halt healthcare-associated infections; integrating HCV testing and antivirals in prisons to cut transmission of the disease; FDA announces listeria outbreak that leads to deaths and hospitalizations across 11 US states; CDC makes advances in foodborne outbreak detection via genome sequencing; and new data about the self-amplifying mRNA vaccine, ARCT-154.

Combating hepatitis C (HCV) transmission through integrated testing and enhanced use of direct-acting antivirals within the prison system can reduce incidence rates.

Sustained virologic response (SVR) and sociodemographic factors were found to be associated with long-term improvements in health-related quality of life in patients with hepatitis C (HCV).

This week, a measles outbreak spans multiple US states and the CDC highlights a rise in syphilis incidents. Fatalities from Group A strep infections have doubled since last year in Canada, and people who inject drugs are at higher risk for hepatitis C and HIV. Investigators are also tracking incident rates over time post-COVID-19 pandemic.

People who inject drugs (PWID) are at a higher risk for hepatitis C and HIV. A new study examined point of care initiatives and how to better support this population with intervention efforts.

This week CDC discusses vaccine recommendations; a provider offers insights on administering live biotherapeutics; and early administration of simnotrelvir plus ritonavir shortened the time to sustained resolution of COVID-19 symptoms.

The CDC stresses the importance of hepatitis B virus (HBV) vaccination, but challenges in treatment accessibility persist.

The XGBoost machine learning model outperformed other AI and logistic regression models for predicting DAA failure, with an AUROC of 1.000 in the training dataset and 0.803 in the validation dataset.

Atea Pharmaceuticals announced topline data from their phase 2 trial showing a higher than expected efficacy for the study.

Changes encompass clarification of recommendations for scheduled vaccinations and the addition of the RSV vaccines for the first time.

This week: Insights into the comparative analysis of COVID and non-COVID pneumonia; how myopathy, with metabolic disturbances and amyloid deposits, is discovered in persons with Long COVID who experience post-exertional malaise; and the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine is shown to be effective in children and adolescents.

Patients in the integrated and standard care treatment arms reported similar SCL-10 scores indicative of psychological stress and symptom burden, both at baseline and after the completion of DAA treatment.

The Kidney Disease: Improving Global Outcomes (KDIGO) work group has published updated guidelines in the Annals of Internal Medicine for the prevention, diagnosis, evaluation, and treatment of HCV in CKD patients.

Response to direct-acting antiviral therapy was similar between patients with and without HBV coinfection, with most patients completing the planned course of treatment and achieving SVR, even in the case of HBV reactivation.

This week's news includes emerging treatment options for patients with persistently positive blood cultures with Methicillin-Susceptible Staphylococcus aureus; how the development of antimicrobial stewardship programs can be an effective strategy for beginning to reduce this critical timing for patients in ICUs; a look at another antibiotic being studied for a healthcare-associated infection; and an investigational vaccine against the Nipah virus begins.

Investigators examined data from the Global Burden of Disease, Injuries, and Risk Factors study 2019 to describe the global, regional, and national burden of liver cancer due to hepatitis C since 1990.

Statistically significant reductions in serum ferritin, transferrin saturation index, and iron levels were observed after treatment, with hyperferritinemia eradicated in nearly all patients treated with DAAs achieving SVR.

The week's news included the differences in public attitudes towards influenza and COVID-19 vaccines, sex-based differences in direct-acting antivirals, a request for an emergency use authorization for a monoclonal antibody for COVID-19 prevention in the immunocompromised, and our final episode of our RSV Roundtable series, which has clinicians weighing in on the importance of counseling patients on the immunizations now and their significance for the future.

Although no differences were observed in the safety and efficacy of FDA-approved combination DAA therapies, female participants reported numerically more adverse events than male participants.