Hepatitis C Trial Shows 100% Cure Rate

Since its discovery in the 1980’s, Hep C virus has presented a puzzle to scientists over the world! Moreover, Egypt is nowadays the one of the countries with the highest incidence of infection with the virus, and we are losing patients every day to liver failure or liver cancer.

On Saturday, Gilead Sciences Inc. presented us with hope. They reported a 100% cure rate on a clinical trial they conducted on patients with Hep C. These patients, who were presenting with really bad grades of the diseases, cases which will not normally be cured with the conventional therapy of Hep C (interferon and ribavirin), were actually completely cured  after 4 weeks of  treatment with a combination of 3 drugs:  sofosbuvir, ribavirin and GS-5885. They also report that they are well-tolerated drugs, however, the new drugs are still under trial to assess their safety and efficacy.

This study was conducted on a small number of patients. A larger number will ultimately be included in a larger trail where the 2 new drugs; sofobuvir and GS-5885, will be assessed in patients with Hep C of all grades.

Although this is definitely good news for us in Egypt, it does not mean we can start treating our patients accordingly. The trial was done on a type of Hep C that is different from the one we currently harbor (genotype 1 as opposed to genotype  4 which causes 90% of cases in Egypt).