Editorial
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2016. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. May 21, 2016; 22(19): 4615-4618
Published online May 21, 2016. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v22.i19.4615
Current treatment of chronic hepatitis C in China: Dilemma and potential problems
Qun-Ying Han, Zheng-Wen Liu
Qun-Ying Han, Zheng-Wen Liu, Department of Infectious Diseases, First Affiliated Hospital of Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an 710061, Shaanxi Province, China
Author contributions: Han QY and Liu ZW conceived the paper and collected the material; Liu ZW wrote the manuscript; both authors have approved the final version to be published.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest related to this paper.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Zheng-Wen Liu, MD, PhD, Professor, Department of Infectious Diseases, First Affiliated Hospital of Xi’an Jiaotong University, No. 277 West Yanta Road, Xi’an 710061, Shaanxi Province, China. liuzhengwen@medmail.com.cn
Telephone: +86-18991232331 Fax: +86-29-85252580
Received: March 1, 2016
Peer-review started: March 2, 2016
First decision: March 21, 2016
Revised: April 3, 2016
Accepted: April 20, 2016
Article in press: April 20, 2016
Published online: May 21, 2016
Abstract

Major advances have been made in the treatment of chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection with the advent of direct-acting antiviral agents (DAAs). China has the most cases of HCV infection worldwide, but none of the DAAs has been approved in mainland China so far, and interferon (IFN)-α-based treatment remains the standard of care. HCV patients without response or with contraindications to IFN-based therapy have no alternative options. However, many patients buy DAAs, especially the generic forms of sofosbuvir, from other countries or areas. Under these circumstances, the use of these drugs may cause many predictable and unpredictable problems in ethics, law and medical practice. Given the obstacles of legal accessibility to DAAs and the potential problems of obtaining and using DAAs in China, the early launching of the DAAs in China or the legalization of buying drugs from areas outside China and using these drugs in China is an urgent issue and needs to be dealt with as soon as possible, in the interest of the patients.

Keywords: Hepatitis C virus infection, Treatment, Direct-acting antiviral agent, Generics, China

Core tip: This article describes the current treatment situation of chronic hepatitis C virus infection in China and discusses the potential problems pertinent to the access and the use of direct-acting antiviral agents (DAAs), especially the use of generic DAAs from various sources.