Pharmaceutical Treatment of Hepatitis C Paper Example

Introduction

The infection that is triggered by the virus of hepatitis C is curable (Zibbell et al. 2018). Most of the patients who took the newest medication got healed, this is according to the report obtained from the clinical trials. Currently, the treatment of the infection caused by hepatitis C is shorter than it used to be. However, it is essential to understand that, when the treatment of is working, the virus of hepatitis C is undetectable, in the first 4-12 weeks and that will remain throughout the period. For one to be considered cured he or she must achieve a continuation of this undetectable status, for around 12-24 weeks after completing the treatment.

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Hepatitis c can damage the liver permanently especially if it is not treated in its early stages. The hepatitis C treatments keep on changing more often (Breskin et al. 2018). The standard treatment that has been used over time is interferon. However, a lot of patients are said to have a lot of side effects after using interferon. The side effects include fatigue, depression, and fever chills. However, the side effects depend on the type of drug, for example, if you use daklinza with sofosbuvir, you will experience some side effects like; confusion, chest pain, diarrhea, fainting among many others. On the other hand, if you use another drug as epclusa for 12 weeks, then the patient will experience some side effects like; fatigue and headache.

The treatment of Hepatitis C presently is a combination of different forms of medications. However, it has been discovered that, the choice of treatment and the duration that, the therapy takes mostly depends on the genotype of a specific virus. Like for example in the US, it has been found out that, genotype 1a is the most prevalent and currently there are so many options of treatment that have been recommended, the options use a combination of potent antiviral medications (Charlton et al. 2015). However, the newest available agents that treat the chronic hepatitis c are Direct-acting antivirals commonly known as the DAAs. The medications work in a way that, they target specific steps in the life cycle of HCV, and the end up destroying the reproduction of the viral cells. Although, the DAAs had made life easy as compared to when they were not there. It is advisable that patients of chronic hepatitis C should be treated early enough before they develop some adverse complications that will end up threatening their lives.

Conclusion

Treatment of hepatitis C has improved in the past decade so much. Unlike other viral diseases like for example HIV which is not curable the hepatitis C is curable. However, on the other hand, the present standard therapy like for instance the pegylated interferon alpha and ribavirin has some numerous limitations. The side effects of the hepatitis C virus, as well as limited efficacy that is experienced in the hepatitis C efficacy, will lead to the development of new healing approaches. Therefore it is essential to identify patients who have the virus at early stages of their illness because it will help in the management of the disease.

Works Cited

Breskin, A., Westreich, D., Cole, S. R., Hudgens, M. G., Hurt, C. B., Seaberg, E. C., ... & Adimora, A. A. (2018). The Effects of Hepatitis C Infection and Treatment on All-cause Mortality Among People Living With Human Immunodeficiency Virus. Clinical Infectious Diseases.

Charlton, M., Gane, E., Manns, M. P., Brown Jr, R. S., Curry, M. P., Kwo, P. Y., ... & McHutchison, J. G. (2015). Sofosbuvir and ribavirin for treatment of compensated recurrent hepatitis C virus infection after liver transplantation. Gastroenterology, 148(1), 108-117.

Zibbell, J. E., Asher, A. K., Patel, R. C., Kupronis, B., Iqbal, K., Ward, J. W., & Holtzman, D. (2018). Increases in acute hepatitis C virus infection related to a growing opioid epidemic and associated injection drug use, United States, 2004 to 2014. American journal of public health, 108(2), 175-181.