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The Ontario government has significantly increased the number of people who can be cured of this potentially fatal, liver-destroying virus by adding some expensive new drugs to its Ontario Public Drug Programs and expanding eligibility to people whose livers aren’t as severely damaged.
Many people who need the treatment would be eligible for an Ontario drug program either because they’re over 65, they’re receiving disability or they have very low incomes. Covering people who are not as ill means patients don’t have to get worse before they get treatment.
Between one and 1.5 per cent of Canadian adults (102,000 in Ontario) have chronic hepatitis C, a virus spread by blood-to-blood contact that often takes decades to show symptoms, by which time there’s already liver damage. Half of the people who have it don’t know. The fact there’s now a cure should encourage everyone to get tested, the doctor said.