Hepatitis C in England and the UK
The number of people living with chronic hepatitis C virus infection in England has fallen by 37% since 2015, to 81,000 in 2020, largely due to improved access to direct-acting antivirals, with around 58,850 treatments taking place between 2015 to 2016 and 2020 to 2021.
Source:
UK Health Security Agency
SPS commentary:
Despite these positive trends, the report notes there are worrying signals that prevention may be failing to keep pace with the gains made in other areas, with the number of new infections, and reinfections following treatment, posing a threat to England meeting WHO incidence targets. With injecting drug use the main driver of transmission in England, a significant proportion of users remain unaware of their infection status, needle and syringe provision is suboptimal and sharing injecting equipment remains a problem. There also remains a substantial proportion of infections in those who were at risk for exposure to infection in the past but who may no longer be in contact with services that would normally offer them testing.