After a competition for delivering medicine for the treatment of hepatitis C, Dr. Olav Dalgard believes that the disease can be eradicated in Norway.
Thursday it became known that health companies will offer all patients with hepatitis C treatment after it has been competitive in delivering medicine.
About 15,000 people are infected with hepatitis C in Norway, reports the NRK. The treatment against the disease has been very expensive for healthcare companies, which has therefore demanded that the patient have a long-term liver injury to receive treatment, writes Dagens Medisin.
Every year, approximately 1,000 patients, mostly addicts and/or drug addicts have been notified that they are not eligible to receive such treatment for the disease. Now, however, everyone can get treatment.
– “You’re welcome to join. It is an exceptionally simple treatment: The treatment is administered over 8-12 weeks. I dare say that everyone treated is being cured,” says senior doctor and professor Olav Dalgard, who is also a member of the hospital purchasing group for hepatitis treatments.
“I think Norway can now be the first country where we can manage to eliminate hepatitis C over a decade period,” Dalgard told NRK.
Previously, the drug company Gilead has been the only provider of medicines for hepatitis C, and the cost of treatment has been around half a million kroner for each course. After the manufacturer AbbVies has also been on the market with a medicine last autumn, the price of treatment has fallen.
– “Many have been frustrated or have become angry. They feel sick even if they have not developed cirrhosis, and many are afraid of infecting others, so it has been an unpleasant situation,” says Olav Dalgard.
© NTB Scanpix / Norway Today
