A doctor examines a hepatitis patient at Bach Mai Hospital in Hanoi (Photo: VNA)Hanoi (VNS/VNA) – The Ministry of
Health has reported that nearly one million Vietnamese people are infected with
the hepatitis C virus ().
According to recent statistics by the Preventive
Medicine Department, 20,000 people die of liver cancer each year in Vietnam, of
which untreated hepatitis B and HCV are the leading causes of cirrhosis and
liver cancer.
Ninety percent of people with HCV are not aware
of the infection. It is often called a ‘silent killer’ because it has no
obvious symptoms but can be extremely dangerous and, in some cases, life
threatening, medical experts said.
The ministry said the number of deaths caused by
and C was the same as the number of people dying from HIV/AIDS and
tuberculosis in Vietnam.
There are vaccines to prevent hepatitis A and B,
however, there is no vaccine for HCV. There are many new medicines that bring
the cure rate up to 95 percent.
However, due to high cost, many infected people
do not have access to new drugs and have to live with it, leading to cirrhosis
and .
Many new drugs which are effective in treating
hepatitis C are not covered by health insurance, causing difficulties for
patients, said Nguyen Van Kinh, Director of the Central Tropical Hospital.
Hepatitis C patients in Vietnam account for
about 7 percent of the population but only 0.1 percent (6,000-8,000 patients)
of them have access to treatment.
“The Ministry of Health allows using new drugs
in HCV treatment in Vietnam and the rate of recovery can be up to 90 percent.
It also has fewer side effects and the time of treatment and costs are
reduced,” Kinh said.
At present, the average cost for a stage of
treatment was 45 million VND over three months, nearly a third cheaper than
that for old medicines, he said.
Kinh also suggested the new drugs should be
covered by public health insurance so hundreds of thousands of patients can
access HCV treatment.
Dam Hieu Trung, deputy director of Vietnam
Social Security’s centre of health insurance assessment and multi-level payment
in the northern region, said public health insurance has still paid for some
medicines for the treatment of hepatitis C.
The centre was still waiting for the Health
Ministry’s decision on new drugs because the ministry was adjusting the list of
drugs covered by public health insurance, he said.
Hepatitis C was a common disease but treatment
was expensive, said Le Van Phuc, deputy head of the health insurance policy
implementation department.
Health insurance funds could not afford to pay
the full cost of treatment for patients with with an annual
insurance premium of about 1 million VND.
“Ourselves and the Health Ministry are
considering adding new drugs to the list covered by public health insurance
because it takes time to carefully evaluate their effectiveness, cost, and
balance with existing health insurance funds,” Phuc said.-VNS/VNA
Source: VietnamPlus
