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Home > Diseases
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Hepatitis C

Symptoms, transmission, and current treatments for hepatitis C

Home > Diseases
hepatitis-c icon

Hepatitis C

Symptoms, transmission, and current treatments for hepatitis C

  • Overview
  • Facts
  • Projects & achievements

What is hepatitis C? 

Hepatitis C is a liver disease caused by the hepatitis C virus. Hepatitis C can cause a mild illness of a few weeks or develop into a serious, lifelong, chronic illness. It is a major cause of cancer and cirrhosis of the liver, and if not treated, it can be fatal.   

Hepatitis C is transmitted through exposure to small quantities of blood. People who inject drugs are at particular risk. About 30% of people infected clear the virus within 6 months without treatment. The remaining 70% develop chronic hepatitis C and for these, the risk of liver cirrhosis ranges between 15% and 30% within 20 years. 75% of those reported as living with chronic hepatitis C live in low- and middle-income countries. 

What is the impact of hepatitis C?

  • 58 million people have hepatitis C
  • 75% of people with hepatitis C live in low- and middle-income countries
  • About 50% of all people with hepatitis C live in 4 countries: China, Pakistan, India, and Egypt
  • 79% are unaware they are infected
  • only 13% have had access to treatment
  • 2.3 million people have both HIV and hepatitis C
  • 15–30% of those chronically infected develop cirrhosis of the liver within 20 years
  • 800 people die every day

Hepatitis C is found throughout the world. There are six different major strains of hepatitis C, known as genotypes, distributed across different regions, with genotype 1 being most prevalent in high-income countries and genotype 3 most prevalent in low- and middle-income countries. Genotype 3 accounts for 30% of global hepatitis C infection.

What are current treatments for hepatitis C?

Pegylated-interferon with ribavirin (standard treatment for chronic hepatitis C until 2011)

  • 40-80% cure rate
  • poorly tolerated
  • long (48 week) treatment duration
  • complex management of the treatment
  • administered by injection
  • difficult to access in some settings.

Direct acting antivirals (WHO recommended since 2016)

  • highly effective (cure rates of >95% in clinical trials)
  • safer and better tolerated than existing therapies
  • shorter (12- or 24-week) treatment duration
  • oral formulation
  • simpler monitoring and laboratory requirements
  • access is quite limited, mostly because of high cost

What new treatments for hepatitis C are needed? 

The World Health Organization’s Global Strategy on Viral Hepatitis aims for 90% of people with hepatitis C virus to be diagnosed, and 80% of those eligible to be treated by 2030. With cure rates of 90% and above, direct-acting antivirals have opened up the possibility of rolling back the disease. Moreover, if people are diagnosed and treated early enough to avoid infecting others, the disease could be eliminated. But as of today, treatment remains largely unaffordable, so national hepatitis C programmes to scale up diagnosis and treatment are stalled.  

A simple, affordable treatment that works for all six strains of hepatitis C is needed to enable a comprehensive public health approach that can reverse the epidemic. 

What hepatitis C medicines are we working on? 

We developed a safe, effective, and easy-to-use direct-acting antiviral regimen, to be used as an affordable combination paving the way for a public health approach to hepatitis C. Our goal is now to increase access to affordable treatments by supporting policy change and encouraging political will to treat hepatitis C. To do so, we are working on innovative programmes to improve access to hepatitis C diagnosis and treatment in a variety of countries. 

Find out about our work on hepatitis C

How do you get hepatitis C? 

Hepatitis C is a blood-borne virus. The most common ways to get infected are: 

  • unsafe injection practices
  • inadequate sterilization of medical equipment
  • blood transfusions of un-screened blood or blood products

Hepatitis C can also be transmitted sexually and be passed from mother to child, but these types of transmission are less common.  

What are the symptoms of hepatitis C? 

Following infection, there is an incubation period of 2 weeks to 6 months. After this period, approximately 80% of people show no symptoms.  

The acutely infected may have these symptoms: 

  • fever
  • fatigue
  • decreased appetite
  • nausea
  • vomiting
  • abdominal pain
  • dark urine
  • grey-coloured faeces
  • joint pain
  • jaundice (yellowing of the skin and the whites of the eyes)

How is hepatitis C diagnosed? 

Hepatitis C infection is diagnosed in two steps:  

  • A serological test is used to test for hepatitis C antibodies, produced by the body to fight the infection.
  • A nucleic acid test is used to test for hepatitis C ribonucleic acid to confirm chronic infection. This test is needed because about 30% of people infected with hepatitis C whose infection clears up by itself will still test positive for hepatitis C antibodies long after they are no longer infected.

Existing diagnostic tests remain too complex and/or too expensive for countries with limited budgets, weak health systems, or both. Simple, more affordable tests are needed.  

We are working with FIND and the Ministry of Health in Malaysia to simplify hepatitis C screening and make it more widely available.

More information 

WHO factsheet 

Last updated: March 2022

Making medical history for neglected patients

We develop urgently needed treatments for neglected patients and ensure they’re affordable, available, and adapted to the communities who need them

Young boy sitting on a hospital bed being examined by a nurse

Chagas disease

Causes heart and vital organ damage, after people are bitten by blood-sucking bugs

We delivered the first-ever treatment for children; now we’re searching for new drug candidates and working to boost access to care

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COVID-19

Devasting and deadly to many, there’s too little research to help the most vulnerable

We’re accelerating research by coordinating clinical trials in low-resource settings and bringing together partners

Patient medical examination

Cryptococcal meningitis

Without treatment, deadly for thousands of people with advanced HIV

We’re working to improve access to life-saving treatments and developing an easier-to-use formulation

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Cutaneous leishmaniasis

Leaves disfiguring, life-long scars that lead to severe social stigma

We’re working to develop safer, shorter treatments for this disabling disease

Dengue

Rapidly spreading climate-sensitive disease with no specific treatment

We’re building a global partnership with dengue-endemic countries to develop a first treatment

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Filaria: river blindness

Lead to unbearable itching, disfiguring skin lesions, and even blindness

We’re working to develop a safe, effective, and affordable drug for the prevention and treatment of this debilitating disease

Young man standing in the street

Hepatitis C

Millions are left without treatment even though effective drugs exist

We’ve delivered a treatment as simple, safe, and effective as the best drugs available today – at a fraction of the cost 

Woman standing in front of her door house in a rural village in Sudan

Mycetoma

Often ends in amputation​, after people get infected from stepping on a thorn

We’re conducting the world’s first trial for an alternative to current treatments, which are toxic and ineffective

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Paediatric HIV

Without treatment, half of children die before their second birthday

We’ve developed a strawberry-flavoured treatment to meet the needs of children long neglected by the global HIV response

Doctor diagnosing a man in a village with his hands on the man's neck

Sleeping sickness

Transmitted by the bite of a tsetse fly and causes severe neurological disorders

We delivered a revolutionary new drug to replace toxic treatments, and have ongoing trials to eliminate this disease

Girl looking over a fence

Visceral leishmaniasis

Is one of the world’s biggest parasitic killers, spread by the bites of sandflies

We’re working to develop a new generation of treatments to replace drugs that are painful, ineffective, and cause side effects

Chagas disease

COVID-19

Cryptococcal meningitis

Cutaneous leishmaniasis

Dengue

Filaria: river blindness

Hepatitis C

Mycetoma

Paediatric HIV

Sleeping sickness

Visceral leishmaniasis

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