6. An Easy Cure for Hep C
About a quarter of people living with HIV also have hepatitis C virus (HCV), which can lead to cirrhosis and liver cancer. Old hep C treatments often involved a year of injected interferon and caused notorious side effects. But this all changed with the advent of direct-acting antivirals (DAAs). The first DAAs, Incivek (telaprevir) and Victrelis (boceprevir), debuted in 2011, but they had to be used with interferon. The first stand-alone DAA, Sovaldi (sofosbuvir), arrived at the end of 2013, followed in quick succession by well-tolerated combination regimens with high cure rates. The newest regimens, including Epclusa (sofosbuvir/velpatasvir) and Mavyret (glecaprevir/pibrentasvir), treat all genotypes of HCV in eight or 12 weeks with a success rate approaching 100%. What’s more, people with HIV and HCV coinfection do as well on treatment as their HIV-negative peers.
