Modelling the impact of a national scale-up of interventions on hepatitis C virus transmission among people who inject drugs in Scotland

By Hannah Fraser, Christinah Mukandavire, Natasha K. Martin, David Goldberg, Norah Palmateer, Alison Munro, Avril Taylor, Matthew Hickman, Sharon Hutchinson, Peter Vickerman

To reduce hepatitis C virus (HCV) transmission among people who inject drugs (PWID), Scottish Government‐funded national strategies, launched in 2008, promoted scaling‐up opioid substitution therapy (OST) and needle and syringe provision (NSP), with some increases in HCV treatment. We test whether observed decreases in HCV incidence post‐2008 can be attributed to this intervention scale‐up.

Most of the decline in hepatitis C virus (HCV) incidence in Scotland between 2008 and 2015 appears to be attributable to intervention scale‐up (opioid substitution therapy and needle and syringe provision) due to government strategies on HCV and drugs.

Click here for limited access to the full report