Project Lead
A/Prof Nico Clark
Lead partner
Royal Melbourne Hospital
Hepatitis C (HCV) is the main cause of death in people who inject drugs globally. 80 per cent of Australians who inject have been exposed, with cirrhosis and liver cancer occurring 20-30 years after exposure. With safe and effective direct-acting antivirals (DAAs), HCV is now simple to treat and eliminable if people can access diagnostic and treatment services. Our team estimates RMH misses 50-100 opportunities to treat HCV by not testing or treating people in time.
I propose a streamlined pathway for diagnosing and treating HCV before people leave the ED or wards, then following them up in the community. If successful, this approach could become standard care in other hospitals, potentially doubling the treatment rate of this hard-to-reach population and moving us closer to HCV elimination.
The MacHSR program will hopefully help us implement this project in a way that enables us to determine the benefit, convincing others to do the same.