Pursuing Elimination of Hepatitis C in Egypt: Cost-Effectiveness and Economic Evaluation of a Country-Wide Program

INTRODUCTION: Hepatitis C virus (HCV) is a global public health crisis. Egypt presents the highest HCV global prevalence. Recently, three different HCV screening/testing/therapy programs were implemented: In 2014 (wave 1), major decisions on HCV therapy were enacted, accompanied by a 99% discount for the HCV therapy sofosbuvir. In 2016 (wave 2), a first testing program was launched to identify patients for free treatment. In 2018 (wave 3), population-wide screening was conducted using a WHO-prequalified finger prick rapid diagnostic test (RDT) to identify/treat all Egyptians with HCV. The financial advantages of HCV screening programs (wave 1–3 results) were estimated vs a baseline period of limited Egyptian HCV testing/therapeutic intervention (2008–2014). METHODS: Using published evidence and model-based estimates from real-world data, we evaluated the direct costs of the different HCV programs, accompanied by a conservative simulation of major HCV health consequences (i.e., liver-related deaths/life years lost) and related indirect costs. Total economic consequences of each HCV program were compared to each other and baseline from a societal perspective. Future costs and health effects were discounted by 3.5% per year. RESULTS: Discounted total costs (in US dollars) were $1,057 billion (baseline), $913 million (wave 1), $457 million (wave 2), and $396 million (wave 3). Discounted HCV-related life years lost were 418,000 (baseline), 377,000 (wave 1), 142,000 (wave 2), and 62,000 (wave 3). With each successive Egyptian HCV screening/testing/therapy wave, total costs and HCV-related mortality were reduced. CONCLUSION: Use of the community-applied, WHO-prequalified RDT was the most dominant approach to cost-effectiveness. These results provide rationale for worldwide scalability of similar HCV elimination programs.