Liver and biliary tract diseases

About hepatitis C

Hepatitis C is an infectious disease in which liver cells are affected, tends to chronic course and in a large number of cases leads to the development of liver cirrhosis and primary hepatocarcinoma. The cause of viral hepatitis C is the RNA-genomic hepatitis C virus.

Hepatitis C is a common disease. According to medical statistics, this disease has been diagnosed in 150 million people around the globe.

 

The infection is transmitted with blood, most often during blood transfusions from an infected donor, as well as the use of used syringes, much less often - during unprotected sexual contact and transplacental.

 

The main treatment for hepatitis C, the only treatment available until recently, was antiviral therapy with interferons and ribavirin. The cost and pronounced side effects made this type of treatment not acceptable to everyone.

 

In the fall of 2014, the American research biopharmaceutical company Gilead Sciences, Inc. (USA, California) launched a new-generation drug for the treatment of hepatitis C in adults of genotype 1.