This page is an archive. Its content may no longer be accurate and was last updated on the original publication date. It is intended for reference and as a historical record only. For hep C questions, call Help4Hep BC at 1-888-411-7578.
Chinese people in the past have gone to the U.S. to for cancer treatment and have snatched up cold medicine and painkillers on trips to Japan. Chinese now go overseas for another medical purpose: curing their liver diseases.
Although treatment of the virus has gone through revolutionary development in the last few years, none of the direct-acting antiviral agents which have shown to cure more than 90% of patients within a few months, have yet been approved by the Chinese regulator. China still uses old-generation therapies including injections of interferon, which has harsh side effects such as headache and hair loss.
Even after a year of being treated with weekly interferon injections, 46-year-old Sun Wei from Shenyang in China’s northeast wasn’t cured. Instead she had lost 42 kilos, or 92 pounds, and developed severe joint pain. “I barely had the appetite to eat anything, or energy to do housework,” she said. “I looked older than 60.”
In October, Ms. Sun boarded a plane to New Delhi with the help of a Shanghai-based company. It was a first trip outside China. She came back with three months’ worth of Gilead Sciences’ blockbuster drug Sovaldi, which is still in the testing stage in China. She says she now tests negative for hepatitis C.
Read more…http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2016/03/30/new-travel-horizons-hepatitis-c-tourism-from-china/