Hepatitis C

To improve the treatment and prognosis of hepatitis C in the Netherlands, practitioners (gastroenterology physicians and internist-infectiologists) want to collect data from people with (cured) hepatitis C in a national registration system. This concerns people with hepatitis C who are not co-infected with HIV.

Although the treatment of viral hepatitis has improved considerably in recent years and hepatitis C can be cured in almost everyone, this is not reflected in the statistics. Insight in the number of infections and the course and consequences of hepatitis C is lacking.

Because hepatitis C can ultimately lead to serious liver problems, sometimes resulting in death, the government has recommended, in the so-called National Hepatitis Plan, to build a national database with registration data of people with hepatitis C in the Netherlands.

The working group of the Dutch Association of Internists (NIV) and the Dutch Association of Gastrointestinal and Liver Physicians (NVMDL) has requested SHM to handle the hepatitis C registration.

Organisation

The mandated working group of NIV and NVMDL and SHM are jointly responsible for collecting hepatitis C data of the treatment centers involved.

Hepatitis C working group

The Hepatitis working group was established in 2021 and is a composition of involved treatment centers and SHM. The members of the hepatitis working group assess research applications and advise on protocols to be drawn up for the collection of data relating to diagnosis, liver morbidity, treatment and response to treatment of hepatitis co-infection.