HCV point of care screening in people tested for SARS‐CoV‐2 in a social‐housing neighbourhood of Milan, Italy

Opportunistic HCV screening in the general population: New insights for a graduated birth cohort approach

“…In Table 1, we report the disaggregate and pooled data of the opportunistic HCV screening conducted by our group during the COVID-19 pandemic. 2,3 In this letter, we also present the data from an HCV-Ab and SARS-CoV-2 co-screening conducted in Castiglione D'Adda (Lodi province) in July 2021 in which the same point-of-care screening method used in our previous studies was applied. 2,3 Overall, the prevalence of HCV-Ab-positive people was 1.9% in the 1989-1969 birth cohort and 2.8% in people born before 1969, whereas no infection was detected in those born after 1989 (0/128 representing 3.1% of the total tested population).…”

“…What we learned from these studies is that opportunistic screening programmes represent a highly valuable occasion to screen general population and have high grade of acceptability. [1][2][3][4] At the time of writing, a national HCV screening involving people born between 1969 and 1989 is ongoing in Italy. This age target was chosen after a costeffectiveness evaluation conducted in 2020, which supported a graduated birth cohort approach.…”

“…This age target was chosen after a costeffectiveness evaluation conducted in 2020, which supported a graduated birth cohort approach. 5 However, data coming from the above-mentioned screening programmes [2][3][4] support the extension of the screening to people born before 1969: while this cohort may have a lower potential of viral transmission and the treatment of HCV infection in the elderly would result in less quality-adjusted life years gained, the disproportionately high prevalence of the infection in this birth cohort justifies the inclusion of the <1969 birth cohort in the screening programme. In Table 1, we report the disaggregate and pooled data of the opportunistic HCV screening conducted by our group during the COVID-19 pandemic.…”

“…2,3 In this letter, we also present the data from an HCV-Ab and SARS-CoV-2 co-screening conducted in Castiglione D'Adda (Lodi province) in July 2021 in which the same point-of-care screening method used in our previous studies was applied. 2,3 Overall, the prevalence of HCV-Ab-positive people was 1.9% in the 1989-1969 birth cohort and 2.8% in people born before 1969, whereas no infection was detected in those born after 1989 (0/128 representing 3.1% of the total tested population). In conclusion, our screening programmes support the expansion of the HCV testing offer to those born <1969, whereas HCV screening for those born >1989 its unlikely to be cost-effective, except for special populations with a high pretest probability of HCV infection.…”

Safety and effectiveness of 8 weeks of Glecaprevir/Pibrentasvir in challenging HCV patients: Italian data from the CREST study

“…The remaining 27% of patients were estimated to have cirrhosis, which emphasizes the need to implement plans to improve screening and linkage to care of patients with HCV in Italy [4]. More recent screening studies conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic showed that depending on the population demographics the HCV prevalence varied from 0.07% up to 2.5%, and up to 29.4% of patients were not aware of their serological status [8][9][10][11][12].…”