Canadian Viral Hepatitis Elimination Day

On Thursday, May 11, 2023, Action Hepatitis Canada joined CanHepC, CanHepB, the Canadian Liver Foundation, and the Canadian Association for the Study of the Liver to mark the 2nd annual
Canadian Viral Hepatitis Elimination Day in Ottawa.

#CanHepDay23 #HepCantWait

Thank you to our many members and allies who are helping amplify our call for the federal government, as well as each province and territory, to bring urgency to eliminating viral hepatitis as a public health threat in Canada by 2030.

FIVE FEDERAL ASKS

n 2016, Canada made an international commitment to eliminate viral hepatitis as a public health threat by 2030. While much of this work falls to the provinces and territories, there are five key things the federal government can do now.

1. Planning
A federal STBBI Action Plan was launched in July 2019, but it includes no targets, no concrete actions, and no timelines. It is not an elimination plan.
In the ongoing STBBI Action Plan refresh, include strategies, targets, and indicators in consultation with priority populations and using a health equity lens to measure progress in the elimination of viral hepatitis.

2. Testing
Canada's hepatitis C screening guidelines only recommend screening those with certain risk factors, despite all evidence that risk-based screening guidelines are ineffective in identifying chronic hepatitis C infections in time to avoid advanced liver disease or death. And we don't have any national hepatitis B screening guidelines at all. Many are diagnosed at the same time they receive their liver cancer diagnosis.
Update hepatitis C screening guidelines to be evidence-based, and develop evidence-based screening guidelines for hepatitis B.

3. Testing-to-Treatment Link
Hepatitis C is curable and hepatitis B is treatable. But it takes several appointments to get from an initial screening to starting treatment. Point-of-care confirmatory testing technology used in other parts of the world to reduce this barrier is not yet available in Canada.
Engage manufacturers of point-of-care testing technologies to bring these tests to Canada.

4. Prevention
85% of all new cases of hepatitis C are among people who inject drugs (PWIDs). Clean needles and syringes bring this number down drastically, yet the federal Harm Reduction Fund can support only a fraction of the applications received from community organizations.
Increase funding to support the expansion of harm reduction programs in all Canadian jurisdictions.

5. Data
In order to measure our progress in viral hepatitis elimination, we need good data about how many people have it.
Fund and increase efforts to collect updated hepatitis B and C prevalence estimates for all Canadian provinces and territories.

Download as PDF.

CanHepDay 2023

A delegation of AHC community members, physicians, patients, and a nurse were in Ottawa for #CanHepDay23.

MP Adam van Koeverden, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health, and MP Elizabeth May, Leader of the Green Party of Canada were among the MPs that stopped in to our Parliamentary Breakfast, and Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) Vice President Don Sheppard and PHAC Executive Director of the Center for Communicable Diseases and Infection Control, Jill Norman. We also met MP Jagmeet Singh outside West Block following our press conference.

In the afternoon we went to the Health Canada offices for a roundtable consultation on the national STBBI Action Plan renewal currently underway. We shared a number of considerations to provide accountability for both hepatitis B and C elimination efforts.

Press conference recording via cpac:

Media coverage & #CanHepDay23 announcements:

CanHepDay 2022

Media Release - April 26, 2022 (Word Doc)

We made a number of good connections during the press conference, meetings, and Parliamentary Reception in Ottawa. Stay tuned in our newsletters for more details as we follow up on these in the coming weeks.