A survey of World Health Organization member countries released ahead of World Hepatitis Day on 28 July shows that nearly two-thirds still have no national plan to combat hepatitis, despite a 2010 World Health Assembly resolution that recognised viral hepatitis as a global health problem.

Only 37% of countries have a national plan to combat viral hepatitis and only 40% have engaged in activities to promote World Hepatitis Day.

You can review how individual countries responded to the World Health Organization survey at the World Hepatitis Alliance website.

ELPA and members of the European Parliament drew attention to the lack of European co-ordination and the inequalities in access to hepatitis prevention and care between countries.

Sunday 28 July was a key day in the hepatitis calendar with individuals, communities and organisations across Europe running events and activities to raise awareness about hepatitis.  The flurry of conversations, reports, breaking news, tweets and Facebook posts just served to show that there is too much to say in just one day!

Infohep.org celebrated its first World Hepatitis Day by reporting on the very latest news, streaming up-to-the-minute news from other credible sources, as well as highlighting some of the main activities of members of ELPA, our partner in infohep.org.

Here is a quick round-up of some of the exciting World Hepatitis Day activities.

The World Hepatitis Alliance (WHA)

With a Guinness World Record attempt and monkeys travelling all over the world, the WHA invited everyone to join its mass awareness campaign. It focused on two themes:

• This is Hepatitis... Know it. Confront it.
• See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil 

Have a look at the monkeys' journey; they’ve even become film stars just for World Hepatitis Day.

The campaign gives an international focus to groups and organisations around the world that can join in, help raise awareness and influence real change in disease prevention and access to testing and treatment.

European Liver Patients Association (ELPA)

ELPA’s special focus this year was on Croatia, to mark its accession to the European Union on 1 July.

Other ELPA members held their own events, disseminated flyers and helped break (hopefully!) the WHA’s World Record attempt.  Check out LIDPA's (Lithuanian Infectious Diseases Patients Association)  ‘See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil’ gathering in Vilnius.

ELPA also created its own Three Monkeys animation, which can be subtitled in a range of languages and broadcast across a variety of media.

Worldwide, it has been estimated that more than 65% of those people who inject drugs or have injected in the past are infected with hepatitis C.

Evidence-based prevention and treatment methods are either ignored or under-funded in many countries, owing to prejudice against drug users and strong opposition to drug treatment methods which employ opioid substitution therapy.

Recommendations – drawn from research regarding hepatitis prevention and treatment in people who inject drugs – were released in July. The recommendations emphasise that active injecting drug use should not be considered a barrier to receiving treatment for hepatitis C. The recommendations also emphasise the effectiveness of needle and syringe exchange and opioid substitution therapy in preventing new hepatitis infections.

Research in the United States conducted over the past 16 years shows that six related interventions are needed, and that each needs to be delivered at large scale, to have a significant impact on new infections in young drug users.

Mathematical modelling of the impact of different interventions on new infections with hepatitis C caused by sharing injecting equipment suggests that the biggest impact will be achieved by combining large-scale provision of needle and syringe exchange with opioid substitution therapy and antiviral treatment for hepatitis C.

In a World Hepatitis Day statement, the head of the UN drugs and crime agency said that drug users deserve the same access to treatment and care as the rest of the community.

Thrombocytopenia (reduced platelet count) can cause defects in the clotting of the blood, leading to easy bruising and bleeding. Thrombocytopenia may be a consequence of hepatitis C infection and of interferon treatment.

Eltrombopag (Revolade) is a drug used to increase platelet production in people with thrombocytopenia. The Committee on Human Medicinal Products (CHMP) of the European Medicines Agency (EMA) has voted in favour of approving eltrombopag to treat thrombocytopenia in people who cannot start hepatitis C treatment due to a low platelet count, and in people who cannot change their interferon dose while taking hepatitis C treatment. It should not be used in combination with direct-acting antivirals.

Eltrombopag is likely to receive marketing approval for this expanded purpose in the European Union within three months.

VX-135 is a nucleotide polymerase inhibitor for hepatitis C treatment under development by Vertex. A phase II dose-escalation trial in the United States has been put on hold by the US Food and Drug Administration as a result of liver enzyme elevations being seen in a study of the drug taking place in Europe.

The drug is being tested in various interferon-free combinations with agents developed by Vertex and by Bristol-Myers Squibb. It may take some time before a final decision on the drug’s future is reached.

This news shows that, while the hepatitis C drug pipeline looks promising, the path of experimental drugs towards marketing approval is very unpredictable.

Interferon and pegylated interferon have been placed on the World Health Organization’s List of Essential Medicines, WHO announced in July. This means that they are now considered to be priority medicines and should be reimbursed by medical insurance schemes, for example. Pressure for inclusion on the Essential Medicines list came from a wide range of advocacy organisations.

In France, advocates are calling on Gilead to make its experimental hepatitis C drug sofosbuvir available for people with late-stage cirrhosis through the French compassionate-access scheme.

In Russia, activists organised a protest action in the week before World Hepatitis Day to draw attention to the high prices of forms of pegylated interferon manufactured by Roche and Merck. Pegylated interferon costs around USD 15,000 for a course of treatment in the Russian Federation. Similar protest actions took place in Armenia, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia and Moldova.

In Thailand, activists from ten civil society groups visited the National Health Security Office to deliver a comprehensive set of recommendations for improvements in prevention and treatment of viral hepatitis. These include:

• Comprehensive screening and testing for risk groups and people on treatment.

• Collection of relevant epidemiological data on HCV in people living with HIV and AIDS (PLWHA) and people who inject drugs (PWID) at national level.

• Expanded eligibility criteria for treatment consideration and access to PLWHA and PWID and for the duration medically necessary.

• Work with relevant stakeholders to develop medical provider capacity to treat HCV, and develop national HCV (and co-infection) treatment guidelines in Thai that are in accordance with international standards.

• Support for civil society to continue to play an essential role in peer education and advocacy activities for HCV prevention, treatment, etc.; in particular, in communities at high risk/prevalence, such as PWID, men who have sex with men (MSM) and PLWHA.

• Expand treatment access to areas around the country with the capacity to treat.

Sunday 28 July was a key day in the hepatitis calendar with individuals, communities and organisations across Europe running events and activities to raise awareness about hepatitis. The flurry of conversation, reports, breaking news, tweets and Facebook posts, just served to show that there is too much to say in just one day!

Infohep.org celebrated its first World Hepatitis Day by reporting on the very latest news, streaming up-to-the-minute news from other credible sources, as well as highlighting some of the main activities of our partner, ELPA’s, members.

Visit the infohep.org noticeboard for a quick round-up of some of the exciting World Hepatitis Day activities.

We aim to provide a comprehensive online database of organisations offering services to people with hepatitis or working in the field of viral hepatitis. We already list nearly 200 services in the European and Eastern Mediterranean region. You can also search for services by country.

Check the infohep database of services and organisations working in viral hepatitis to find out whether your organisation is already listed.

If we don’t have a listing yet, please add your details for review and inclusion in the database.