Hepatitis C drugs not reaching poor

摘要

The publication last week of the first treat- ment guidelines for hepatitis C virus (HCV), and the advent of drugs that can cure most infections of the virus, have left public-health researchers with a touch of deja vu. Three decades after wrestling to lower the cost of AIDS drugs (prices fell from about US$10,000 per patient per year in the 1990s to less than $100 in the mid-2000s), they are once again asking how expensive life-saving medicines can be made affordable for patients.