The study also found gaps in available data in Africa, South America and Central Asia. Therefore, Dr. Razavi, on behalf of the Polaris Observatory HCV collaborators, requests that readers provide data for any country with missing data to the Polaris Observatory.

Dr. Graham Foster of Queen Mary University in London, UK, told Reuters Health, “This is an important study outlining the burden of disease from chronic HCV infection using the very latest models. Given the increasing access to antiviral therapy it is now appropriate to use these data to plan for elimination programs.”

In a related editorial, Dr. Foster noted, “Given that drug prices might be as little as US$100 per curative course and a population of less than 80 million people are infected, the profits from one of the new technology giants would allow therapy to be purchased for every infected person on the planet.”

“Perhaps these new data will provide the spur required to some generous benefactor. Treatment of every disease might not be realistic but treatment of every person with hepatitis C now most definitely is,” he concluded.

In an email, Dr. Foster explained, “The cost of the drugs in the developing world is much less than in the developed world and with 6-8 week courses of tablets manufactured by generic manufacturers there is every reason to expect that the costs will fall. If a ‘donation’ of, say, a billion dollars was available, then there is every reason to believe that the generic companies would compete to manufacture with minimal mark up and costs would fall to affordable levels.”

Dr. Jeffrey D. Klausner, professor of Medicine and Public Health at the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine and Fielding School of Public Health, told Reuters Health by email that despite the lower prevalence, “There is no real change. 1% of the world population (71 million) with active HCV infection is a huge amount, double the number (35 million) of those with HIV.”