LITERATURE UPDATE
Hepatitis C virus testing: a route to disease elimination
The World Health Organization targets global elimination of hepatitis C by 2030, aiming for a 90% reduction in new cases and a 65% drop in mortality, and testing is pivotal to achieving this goal. Here, Pathology in Practice Science Editor Brian Nation looks at recent published work in this area.
Global Elimination of Hepatitis C Virus Fleurence RL, Alter HJ, Collins FS, Ward JW. Annu Rev Med. 2025 Jan; 76 (1): 29–41. doi: 10.1146/annurev- med-050223-111239.
Hepatitis C virus (HCV) is predominantly transmited through parenteral exposures to infectious blood or body fluids. In 2019, approximately 58 million people worldwide were infected with HCV, and 290,000 deaths occurred due to hepatitis C-related conditions, despite hepatitis C being curable. There are substantial barriers to elimination, including the lack of widespread point-of-care diagnostics, cost of treatment, stigma associated with hepatitis C, and challenges in reaching marginalised populations, such as people who inject drugs. The World Health Organization (WHO)
has set goals to eliminate hepatitis C by 2030. Several countries, including Australia, Egypt, Georgia, and Rwanda, have made remarkable progress toward
hepatitis C elimination. In the United States, the Biden-Harris administration issued a plan for the national elimination of hepatitis C. Global progress has been uneven, however, and will need to accelerate considerably to reach the WHO’s 2030 goals. Nevertheless, the global elimination of hepatitis C is within reach and should remain a high public health priority.
Molecular Point-of-Care Testing for Hepatitis C: Available Technologies, Pipeline, and Promising Future Directions Ivanova Reipold E, Shilton S, Donolato M, Fernandez Suarez M. J Infect Dis. 2024 May 8; 229 (12 Suppl 3): S342–S349. doi: 10.1093/infdis/jiad463.
Hepatitis C virus (HCV) remains a major public health problem, despite the availability of effective treatments. In many areas, the ability to diagnose HCV infection at the point of care is key to scaling up access to care and treatment.
To achieve this, an accurate, easy-to-use, and affordable diagnostic tool is required – this would enable decentralised testing and the creation of one-stop centres to eliminate gaps in the care cascade, which would help reach the millions of people with undiagnosed HCV infection in low- and middle-income countries and high-risk populations in high-income countries. In this review, the authors examine
the current state of point-of-care molecular technologies, the advantages and limitations of currently available devices (both near- and true-point of care), the potential of molecular testing to transform diagnostic medicine in the future, and the challenges that need to be addressed for broader adoption of this technology in routine clinical practice.
Diagnostic performance of hepatitis C virus core antigen testing for detecting hepatitis C in people living with hepatitis B: a systematic review and meta-analysis Treviño-Nakoura A, Sepúlveda-Crespo D, Bellon JM et al. Infect Dis Poverty. 2024 Dec 2; 13 (1): 89. doi: 10.1186/s40249-024-01264-7.
The current diagnostic strategy for hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection involves a two-step approach: antibody HCV screening followed by confirmatory nucleic acid testing. This study aimed to evaluate the diagnostic performance of the Abbot ARCHITECT HCV Ag assay in serum/plasma samples as a potential one- step alternative for diagnosing active HCV infection in people living with hepatitis B virus (PLWHB) through a systematic review and meta-analysis. A systematic review and meta-analysis
Hepatitis C virus particle purified from cell culture (Transmission electron micrograph [TEM]).
was conducted following PRISMA-DTA guidelines. This protocol was registered on PROSPERO (CRD42023402093). A comprehensive search of electronic
September 2026
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Maria Teresa Catanese, Martina Kopp, Kunihiro Uryu, and Charles Rice derivative work: TimVickers / Public domain / Wikimedia Commons
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