Global Burden and Elimination Progress of Viral Hepatitis B and C Toward the 2030 WHO Targets: A Structured Review of Epidemiology, Inequities, and Service Delivery Gaps

Viral hepatitis B and C remain leading infectious causes of cirrhosis, liver cancer, and premature death worldwide, and the World Health Organization (WHO) has called for both infections to be eliminated as public health threats within this decade.This single-reviewer, selectively sourced structured narrative review provides a non-exhaustive overview of progress toward that goal, with attention to long-term burden trends, inequities between and within countries, model-based projections of elimination timelines, and gaps in service delivery.It is not a systematic review and makes no claim to be comprehensive.Evidence was identified through a small number of general web queries and full-text files held by the author; bibliographic database search strings were drafted but not executed, so relevant evidence may have been missed or misclassified.One reviewer performed screening, extraction, and appraisal, and a PRISMA-style flow diagram is provided for transparency only.Eligible records were global, regional, or multinational analyses and WHO reports addressing disease burden, service coverage, elimination progress, or prevention.Reporting completeness, risk of bias, and funding and conflict-of-interest declarations were appraised as separate dimensions.In the sources reviewed, age-standardized rates of infection have declined over recent decades, a pattern consistent with the effects of vaccination and improved treatment, although the analyses cannot establish causation.However, population growth, aging, and infections acquired before vaccination have kept the absolute burden high.Modeled estimates suggest that low-resource settings and people who inject drugs bear a disproportionate share of that burden, and the projections and program data reviewed indicate that most countries are not on course to meet the elimination targets.The main obstacles appear to lie in diagnosis, treatment access, timely birth-dose vaccination, antenatal testing, and harm reduction rather than in a lack of effective tools.Falling age-standardized rates should therefore not be mistaken for sufficient progress.These findings are hypothesis-generating and should be confirmed by a prospectively registered, database-complete systematic review.