Viral hepatitis C epidemiology and treatment methods in the Northern region

The article is based on a review of scientific literature, which provides an idea of the epidemiology of viral hepatitis C in the Russian Federation, the Arkhangelsk Region in particular. The evolution of the treatment of chronic viral hepatitis C over several decades is considered. Viral hepatitis C (VHC) today remains a global problem. According to the World Health Organization (WHO) in the “Global Hepatitis Report” for 2024, the number of people infected with hepatitis B and C reached about 300 million people. According to 2020 data, hepatitis C accounted for approximately 50 million people. The relevance of the problem lies in the increase in the number of patients with the chronic form of the disease due to a long period of low symptoms, which, according to sources, can reach 20-25 years. Untimely treatment and lack of specific prevention lead to increased mortality from complications of chronic VHC. Since the advent of direct acting antiviral agents (DAAs), medicine has made a major breakthrough in the treatment of VHC, replacing interferons as standard therapy. DAAs are highly effective; after achieving a full antiviral effect, the patient ceases to act as a source of infection and does not need complex treatment programs in case of complications during the formation of liver fibrosis and cirrhosis. The purpose of the research is to study the dynamics of the spread of acute and chronic hepatitis C in the Arkhangelsk Region and investigate the features of current treatment of VHC in the Russian Federation and abroad. The analysis of the prevalence of VHC was performed using the materials and data of the report “On the state of sanitary and epidemiological well-being of the population in the Arkhangelsk Region in 2023”. The search for articles was carried out in the databases https://www.ncbi.nlm. nih.gov/pubmed/, https://elibrary.ru/, https://cyberleninka.ru/, and https://www.biomedcentral.com/ with the following keywords: viral hepatitis, chronic viral hepatitis C, prevalence in northern regions, modern technologies for treating chronic hepatitis C. A total of 45 publications in Russian and foreign languages were studied, and 20 works were selected for analysis.