Hepatitis C New Zealand blog January 2010 New Zealand Viral Hepatitis Whakatane 2010
New Zealand Viral Hepatitis 3rd NZ Conference Whakatane 2010
Friday 05 March – Saturday 06 March 2010
War Memorial Complex, Whakatane, New Zealand
Invited Speakers: Professor Mitchell Shiffman, USA
Professor Andrew Lloyd, Australia
Dr Morris Sherman, Canada
Dr James Fung, Hong Kong
Around half the conference will be about hepatitis B and the other half hepatitis C
With topics such as
Relevance of viral load; is it a predictor to HCC? James Fung
Multidisciplinary approach of HCC in NZ John McCall or Adam Bartlet
Therapies available for patients with HCC in NZ Catherine Stedman
State of the Art Lecture
Optimisation of Outcomes with current standard-of-care” (on use of baseline and
on-treatment responses (RVR, EVR) to individualiase therapy, weight-based RBV).
What’s next – direct acting antivirals (DAAs )Mitch Shiffman
HCV in Correctional Facilities
HCV prevention, treatment and follow-up in prison populations Andrew Lloyd
HCV in NZ correctional facilities Frank Weilert
NZ model in an Auckland prison Steve Gerred
Difficult-to-treat patients
State of Art Lecture
“Approaches to non-responders – retreatment, induction dosing IFN,
higher dosing RBV, maintenance therapy – do they work” Mitch Shiffman
Alternative therapies for HCV
Is there alternative therapies for HCV treatment and do they work? TBA; College of natural therapies
Middlemore audit of patients taking alternative therapy Jacinda Ryan
Hepatotoxic therapies Sarah Fitt
Debate: Should there be a national register for chronic HBV & HCV?
You can find out more about the conference at the hepatitis foundation of New Zealand Website here
http://www.hepfoundation.org.nz/conferencep.html
and register here
http://www.hepfoundation.org.nz/RegistrationForm2010.pdf
Our invite must have got lost in the mail and our budget of zero precludes travel. The joys of the peer based NGO.
New Zealand hep c news letter
Got my first email copy of the New Zealand hep c news letter , a joint effort by the Auckland Christchurch and Dunedin Hepatitis C Resources centres.
Well actually I accidentally deleted it so if you want to check it out Hepatitis C resource centre 0800 224372 (0800 22 HEPC)
A viral hepatitis testing pilot project in 19 pharmacies across the country has found a hepatitis B or C positive patient in every 6 tests conducted.
I mentioned this chemist based anonymous testing for hepatitis at English pharmacies a while back; the results of the trial have been interesting
19 pharmacies in 5 PCT areas offered free, on-demand hepatitis B and C dried blood spot tests to clients who had been at risk of contracting viral hepatitis as part of a 3-month pilot project organised by The Hepatitis C Trust. Across the pharmacies a total of 234 tests were conducted, diagnosing 35 people with hepatitis C (15% of tests) and 4 people with hepatitis B (2% of tests). This is a far higher proportion of hepatitis C positive diagnoses than found in GP surgeries, where 4% of tests find positive hepatitis C patients and 2% of tests find hepatitis B patients.
Dev Dalvar from D R Pharmacy in Sandwell PCT commented on the pilot: “Offering hepatitis B and C tests in my pharmacy has been a huge benefit to the local community. The people diagnosed will now be able to access potentially life-saving treatment and many customers are more aware about the viruses and risk factors.
Charles Gore, Chief Executive of The Hepatitis C Trust said: “It is a tragedy that increasing numbers of people with hepatitis C are dying, often because they have been living with the hepatitis B or C undiagnosed for years, even decades. There are at least 100,000 people living with the hepatitis C unawares but only 8,000 people were diagnosed last year. We desperately need a new approach to testing that will find the undiagnosed patients and this pilot study shows pharmacy testing could be just what is needed.
A series of Hepatitis C videos from the Harm reduction works
HIV, hepatitis C and injecting drug use, part 2: The sharing of injecting equipment
Best of health for 2010
www.hcv.org.nz