Taiwan: Experts urge action to cut ‘mad levels’ of hepatitis C

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TAIPEI, Taiwan — Taiwan sees more than 10,000 new cases of hepatitis C every year, the Taiwan Association for the Study of the Liver (TASL, 台灣肝臟研究協會) said Monday, calling on the government to strive for universal screenings and easier access to medication.

“In a village in Southern Taiwan, 70 percent of the community has been diagnosed with the disease. Such rates are considered mad levels — almost unheard of — aside from in drug injection communities,” founder and president of the World Hepatitis Alliance Charles Gore told The China Post.

Gore said that while Taiwan was a world leader in prevention efforts against hepatitis B, its accomplishments in that realm had seemed to distract from the severe hepatitis C situation.

Following an Asian Pacific Association for the Study of the Liver forum on hepatitis C in Kaohsiung Sunday, public health experts gathered in Taipei Monday to call for efforts to raise public awareness about the disease and to reduce the stigma around and discrimination experienced by patients with the disease.