A National Academy of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine report offers recommendations to eliminate approximately 90,000 hepatitis B and C-related deaths by 2030, Gastroenterology and Endoscopy News reports.
Here's what you should know.
1. The report believes actively diagnosing the nation's HBV and HCV populations could prevent 60,000 HBV-related and 28,800 HCV-related deaths by 2030.
2. Researchers hypothesize collecting public health information, introducing essential interventions, delivering treatments to rural and underserved areas, financing cost-effective treatments and expanding research efforts can work to eliminate both diseases.
3. The academy calls on public and private health organizations to lift their Medicaid restrictions on HCV treatments to increase access to the treatments.
4. NASEM Chair Brian Strom, MD, said in a release to Gastroenterology and Endoscopy News, "Despite being the seventh leading cause of death in the world and killing more people every year than HIV, road traffic accidents or diabetes, viral hepatitis accounts for less than 1 percent of the National Institutes of Health research budget."