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HCV elimination — lessons learned from a small Eurasian country, Georgia

In April 2015, in partnership with the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Gilead Sciences, the country of Georgia launched the world's first national HCV elimination programme, aiming to reduce HCV prevalence by 90% by 2020. After 2 years of progress, how can the Georgia experience inform global approaches to eliminating HCV?

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Figure 1: Key activities for the nationwide HCV elimination programme in Georgia.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank all clinicians participating in the Georgia HCV elimination programme, especially T. Tsertsvadze of the Infection Diseases, AIDS, and Clinical Immunology Research Center, Tbilisi, Georgia; M. Butsashvili, of Neolab, Tbilisi; D. Metreveli, of Medical Center Mrcheveli, Tbilisi; L. Sharvadze, of the Joint Georgian-French Hepatology Clinic Hepa, Tbilisi; I. Tskhomelidze and V. Kvaratskhelia of the Ministry of Labour, Health and Social Affairs of Georgia; D. Baliashvili, M. Tsereteli and M. Alkhazashvili of the National Center for Disease Control and Public Health of Georgia; J. Morgan, B. Skaggs, L. Gvinjilia and T. Kuchuloria of the South Caucasus Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Office, Tbilisi; and J. Drobeniuc, S. Shadaker, N. Glass, A. Koscelski, R. Wilson and J. Ward of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia, USA.

Partners of the Georgia HCV elimination programme are: Georgian Harm Reduction Network; WHO; Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes, University of New Mexico; Liver Institute and Foundation for Education and Research; Foundation for Innovative Diagnostics; Médecins du Monde; Abbott Laboratories; Bristol University; Georgia State University; Global Fund; Becton Dickinson; Blood System Research Institute; Gilead Sciences.

The findings and conclusions in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official position of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or the US Department of Health and Human Services.

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Correspondence to Muazzam Nasrullah.

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Key activities for a nationwide HCV elimination program — Georgia (PDF 153 kb)

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Nasrullah, M., Sergeenko, D., Gamkrelidze, A. et al. HCV elimination — lessons learned from a small Eurasian country, Georgia. Nat Rev Gastroenterol Hepatol 14, 447–448 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrgastro.2017.100

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