This afternoon, I met up with Hajar Mat Noji, a PhD student in Health Economics and Health Technology Assessment at the University of Glasgow, at Toro’s Steakhouse in Manchester. I was interviewed for her thesis on, “Assessing cost-effectiveness and affordability of new expensive treatment options and impact on sustainability of health systems.”
I shared the case study on Hepatitis C in Malaysia on how we made several critical policy decisions, from decentralising care from hospitals to community clinics, to driving the urgency of finding the “missing millions,” and maximizing the cost-saving impact of hepatitis C elimination programs aligned with the WHO’s 2030 target.
Our overall progress speaks for itself. Working with the Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics (FIND) on point-of-care testing, and securing access to affordable therapeutics (STORM-C-1 trial) for hepatitis C, coupled with the groundbreaking EASE study where we reduced treatment duration from 12 weeks to 8 weeks and slashing costs by a third without compromising efficacy.
Today, Malaysia is actively working to find the missing millions of undiagnosed Hepatitis C patients, aiming for elimination by 2030. With improved point-of-care diagnostics and therapeutic access, the country is on track to drastically reduce and eliminate Hepatitis C and its complications, including liver cancer, cirrhosis, and liver failure