Gilead Joins First-of-its-Kind Public-Private Initiative to Improve Management of Viral Hepatitis in Vietnam and the Philippines
September 22 2022 - 8:30AM
Business Wire
- Public-Private Effort to Shift Traditional
Model of Hepatitis Management to Primary Care and Help to Expand
Care to More People in Need -
Gilead Sciences, Inc. today announced a new public-private
initiative with the Partnership for Health Advancement in Vietnam
(HAIVN), a collaboration between Brigham and Women’s Hospital,
Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.
This multi-year initiative will have a phased approach to help
address barriers that limit viral hepatitis diagnosis and care at
primary healthcare facilities in Vietnam and the Philippines, two
countries with high burdens of hepatitis B and C.
Gilead and HAIVN will work together with a multi-stakeholder
coalition, involving national ministries of health, academic
stakeholders including the University of Philippines-Manila (UP
Manila), provincial hospitals and primary healthcare centers to
support this pilot program. The focus of the program will be on
person-centered approaches in training non-specialist
community-based healthcare providers in prevention and management
of viral hepatitis, incorporating education, screening, diagnosis
and linkage to care for hepatitis B and C into routine patient
visits for at-risk populations. Gilead and HAIVN will also aim to
strengthen primary healthcare systems including the referrals and
counter-referral systems to enhance coordination between specialist
and primary care. The two organizations will make the outcomes and
learnings from the initiative public to contribute towards better
understanding of adequate public health approaches to improve
person-centered, community-based management of viral hepatitis.
“This collaboration will provide evidence to support a shift
from the current dependence on scarce and overstretched specialists
to a broader group of primary care clinicians while simultaneously
strengthening primary health care systems and expanding countries’
capacity to diagnose, manage and treat viral hepatitis,” said David
Duong, MD, MPH, Director of the Harvard Medical School Program in
Global Primary Care and Social Change and an internal medicine
physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. “Through this innovative
initiative with Gilead, we will apply new patient-centered,
community-based models to hepatitis care and treatment, building on
the foundation that HAIVN has built.”
The initiative will support national priorities for Vietnam and
the Philippines: both governments are committed to strengthening
primary healthcare and controlling hepatitis. The World Health
Organization has set a global target to eliminate viral hepatitis
as a public health problem by 2030, calling for 90% of people with
hepatitis B and C to be diagnosed, 80% of those eligible for
treatment to be treated and a 65% reduction in mortality, in
addition to developing preventative actions.1 However, despite the
important gains in biomedical technology and management of viral
hepatitis, implementation of best practices and access to
diagnostics and treatment in both countries are still significantly
limited and inconsistent. At the current pace, Vietnam and the
Philippines are not expected to reach WHO targets before 2050.
“This approach has significant potential for application in many
other disease areas and low- and middle-income countries where
specialist providers are scarce,” said Dr. Harald Nusser, Vice
President, Head of Global Patient Solutions, Gilead Sciences. “More
than proof of concept for eliminating viral hepatitis and
strengthening healthcare systems, this initiative demonstrates the
potential for the meaningful impact that public, private and
academic collaborations can make on improving global health equity
and achieving Sustainable Development Goal 3 regarding good health
and well-being.”
Hepatitis B and C lead to chronic disease in hundreds of
millions of people globally and together are the most common cause
of liver cirrhosis, liver cancer and viral hepatitis-related
deaths. An estimated 354 million people worldwide live with
hepatitis B or C, and for most, testing and treatment remain beyond
reach.2 In Vietnam, out of a population of 97 million, nearly 7.8
million people have hepatitis B and over 900,000 have hepatitis C.
Based on 2020 estimates from the CDA Foundation’s Polaris database,
only 30% of Vietnamese people with hepatitis B have been diagnosed
and only 3% treated. For hepatitis C, only 14% of cases have been
diagnosed and 7% have been treated.3 In the Philippines, over 10
million people are infected with hepatitis B and nearly 450,000
with hepatitis C, with the care cascade standing at 5% diagnosed
and less than 1% treated for hepatitis B and 23% diagnosed and 1%
treated for hepatitis C. 3
About Sustainable Development
Goals
The 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) were adopted by the
United Nations (UN) Member States in 2015, as part of the 2030
Agenda for Sustainable Development. They are call to actions by all
countries to unite in a global partnership to ensure peace and
prosperity for people and planet. SDG 3 Good Health and Wellbeing
is one of the SDGs that Gilead supports to improve global health
and sustainable development. SDG 3 consists of several targets,
including fighting communicable diseases, achieving universal
health coverage, increasing health financing and support for health
workforce in developing countries. For more information on the SDGs
that Gilead support, please visit www.gilead.com.
About Gilead Sciences
Gilead Sciences, Inc. is a biopharmaceutical company that has
pursued and achieved breakthroughs in medicine for more than three
decades, with the goal of creating a healthier world for all
people. The company is committed to advancing innovative medicines
to prevent and treat life-threatening diseases, including HIV,
viral hepatitis and cancer. Gilead operates in more than 35
countries worldwide, with headquarters in Foster City,
California.
Gilead and the Gilead logo are trademarks of
Gilead Sciences, Inc., or its related companies.
For more information about Gilead, please visit
the company’s website at www.gilead.com , follow Gilead on Twitter
(@Gilead Sciences) or call Gilead Public Affairs at 1-800-GILEAD-5
or 1-650-574-3000.
1 WHO Global Health Sector Strategy on Viral Hepatitis 2016-201:
Towards Ending Viral Hepatitis
https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/246177/WHO-HIV-2016.06-eng.pdf
2 https://www.who.int/health-topics/hepatitis#tab=tab_1
3 CDAF https://cdafound.org/.
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