Challenges and achievements on the road to hepatitis elimination

Every year, World Hepatitis Day draws attention to a disease that causes over one million deaths a year despite being largely preventable due to the availability of an effective vaccine against hepatitis B, curative therapies for hepatitis C, treatment options for chronic hepatitis B as well as diagnostics for both viruses. Achieving the World Health Organization’s goal of eliminating viral hepatitis as a public health problem by 2030 will require major improvements in vaccination coverage, diagnosis, access to care and long-term follow-up. To discuss the progress made so far, we spoke with Professor Ekta Gupta, Head of Clinical Virology and Nodal Officer for the WHO Collaborating Centre on Viral Hepatitis at the Institute of Liver and Biliary Sciences (ILBS) in New Delhi, India. Gupta has more than 29 years of experience in clinical virology and has played an important role in the development and implementation of viral hepatitis control programmes at the Delhi State and National level with the National Viral Hepatitis Control Program in India.