Overview

The tool was developed by Dr. Chhatwal's research team at Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School in collaboration with the Coalition for Global Hepatitis Elimination. The online interactive tool supports budget-based planning by allowing countries to estimate the hepatitis C (HCV) testing and treatment volumes needed for elimination and the associated costs. The tool evaluates the costs and benefits of different screening policies and testing algorithms for elimination and allows users to explore the impact of reduced prices for tests and treatment on total program costs. The tool is available to countries free-of-charge and technical assistance is available to support partners in using the tool.

Possible uses of the Hep C Elimination Tool

Planning:

• Estimating testing and treatment volumes for reaching HCV elimination goals under various scale-up strategies
• Estimating the costs of HCV screening, treatment, and disease management to reach elimination under various scale-up strategies
• Estimating the impact of different screening policies and testing algorithms on both disease burden and costs

Monitoring:

• Estimating the current treatment cascade based on key input data
• Estimating current progress to the country’s elimination goals

What inputs can be changed?

1. Screening policy choice:  One or a combination of risk-based, age based, or universal screening
2. Testing algorithm choice: One or a combination of laboratory and point-of-care based anti-HCV, HCV RNA, and HCV core antigen platforms
3. Testing and treatment costs: Unit costs for anti-HCV and confirmatory tests and HCV therapies
4. Target year to meet elimination goals

What outputs will the tool provide?

1. Screening and treatment rate required for elimination: Both rates and numbers for planning will be estimated
2. Annual and total required HCV-related costs: for screening, treatment, and disease management to reach elimination
3. Epidemiological impacts: HCV incidence, prevalence, mortality and disease burden (cirrhosis and HCC)
4. Current HCV care cascade diagram: Trends in HCV prevalence, number diagnosed, treated, and cured accounting for moving underlying prevalence with cures

Countries in Tool

Currently the tool is programmed for the countries of Georgia, Pakistan, and Rwanda. To add your country to the tool, email globalhep [at] taskforce.org.

Guiding principles

The main principles of tool development are country ownership and transparency. All users will have access to the model methodology and assumptions and will be able to request updates of these parameters to meet local needs.

Access the Hep C Elimination Tool Here

Contact the Coalition at globalhep [at] taskforce.org to learn more.