KIM LANDERS: Health experts across Australia are more hopeful than ever of eliminating hepatitis C within a few years.
Powerful antiviral drugs are publicly subsidised and they're far more effective than what's been available before.
Now health workers are trying to figure out how to overcome the stigma that stops some people from getting treatment.
Tom Nightingale reports.
TOM NIGHTINGALE: A disease without a name - Sam Sejavka says hepatitis C wasn't known when he contracted it several decades ago.
SAM SEJAVKA: It developed a stigma far out sizing its actual kind of effect on one's life. But it has slowed me down, I wonder what I might have achieved if I didn't have it.
TOM NIGHTINGALE: The musician from Melbourne has tried treatment four times, each, he says, with ghastly side effects.
For the past few weeks he's been taking new direct acting antiviral drugs.
The expensive drugs are now on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, which means more people can take them and raises hope that the disease could eventually be eliminated.
Professor Margaret Hellard is on the Victorian Government's Hepatitis C Readiness Working Group.
MARGARET HELLARD: We will be able to eliminate hepatitis C from our country over the next 10 to 15 years if these drugs are used well and wisely.
TOM NIGHTINGALE: More than 200,000 people in Australia have hepatitis C.
Sam Sejavka says the stigma will need to be overcome.
SAM SEJAVKA: There's huge potential to treat anyone who has contact with medical services.
There's your kind of feral population who are out there, who have no contact at all. That's an issue.
And the stigma does exist. It's just how you cope with it personally.
TOM NIGHTINGALE: Margaret Hellard treats people at community clinics in Melbourne.
She says the tone and language of debate can make the stigma worse.
MARGARET HELLARD: In Victoria we are fortunate to have what we call primary health care services, which are one stop shops for people who inject drugs, needle and syringe program there, opiate substitution program, broader counselling programs, helping with housing.
And so to interact with those services and to provide services there for viral hepatitis treatment is really important, taking treatment to people as opposed to expecting them to come to us.
TOM NIGHTINGALE: Sam Sejavka thinks the newly available drugs will have a big effect, although the subsidy is an economic decision.
SAM SEJAVKA: It's still cheaper than what it would cost to treat all these people with liver transplants and cirrhosis and all that sort of business.
And I think a lot of people who've been living a bit like zombies, might just come back to life again.
KIM LANDERS: Hepatitis C sufferer Sam Sejavka ending that report from Tom Nightingale.
Powerful antiviral drugs are publicly subsidised and they're far more effective than what's been available before.
Now health workers are trying to figure out how to overcome the stigma that stops some people from getting treatment.
Tom Nightingale reports.
TOM NIGHTINGALE: A disease without a name - Sam Sejavka says hepatitis C wasn't known when he contracted it several decades ago.
SAM SEJAVKA: It developed a stigma far out sizing its actual kind of effect on one's life. But it has slowed me down, I wonder what I might have achieved if I didn't have it.
TOM NIGHTINGALE: The musician from Melbourne has tried treatment four times, each, he says, with ghastly side effects.
For the past few weeks he's been taking new direct acting antiviral drugs.
The expensive drugs are now on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, which means more people can take them and raises hope that the disease could eventually be eliminated.
Professor Margaret Hellard is on the Victorian Government's Hepatitis C Readiness Working Group.
MARGARET HELLARD: We will be able to eliminate hepatitis C from our country over the next 10 to 15 years if these drugs are used well and wisely.
TOM NIGHTINGALE: More than 200,000 people in Australia have hepatitis C.
Sam Sejavka says the stigma will need to be overcome.
SAM SEJAVKA: There's huge potential to treat anyone who has contact with medical services.
There's your kind of feral population who are out there, who have no contact at all. That's an issue.
And the stigma does exist. It's just how you cope with it personally.
TOM NIGHTINGALE: Margaret Hellard treats people at community clinics in Melbourne.
She says the tone and language of debate can make the stigma worse.
MARGARET HELLARD: In Victoria we are fortunate to have what we call primary health care services, which are one stop shops for people who inject drugs, needle and syringe program there, opiate substitution program, broader counselling programs, helping with housing.
And so to interact with those services and to provide services there for viral hepatitis treatment is really important, taking treatment to people as opposed to expecting them to come to us.
TOM NIGHTINGALE: Sam Sejavka thinks the newly available drugs will have a big effect, although the subsidy is an economic decision.
SAM SEJAVKA: It's still cheaper than what it would cost to treat all these people with liver transplants and cirrhosis and all that sort of business.
And I think a lot of people who've been living a bit like zombies, might just come back to life again.
KIM LANDERS: Hepatitis C sufferer Sam Sejavka ending that report from Tom Nightingale.
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