This study was conducted at Maroof International Hospital and Islamabad Specialists Clinic, Islamabad. Professor Muzaffar Gill, who supervised the research, while talking to APP acknowledged the work of Dr Uzma Adeeb and Dr Fatima Khattak, the research fellows who were actively involved in this research project.
According to the medical experts, this is very encouraging news for the patients who are dealing with chronic hepatitis C, even after treatment with Pegylated Interferon. Professor Gill said hepatitis C is a growing menace in the country and early detection of the disease and timely intervention in terms of treatment is still a burning issue.
He said standard care for treatment of chronic hepatitis C is weekly injection of Peg-interferon and Ribavirin and its efficacy is 80 percent in population. "Unfortunately we are facing new challenges as a result of this treatment as there is 15-20 percent relapse rate (recurrence of diseases) even after 6 months of treatment with Pegylated Interferon," he pointed.
He said after new research findings, there has come up a new ray of hope with newly launched Consensus Interferon (Infergen). This interferon is being used in Europe and United States for the last 2-3 years for chronic Hepatitis C patients, who relapse or do not respond with Peg-Interferon, he elaborated.
Dr Gill said, "We did conduct the first ever clinical study in Pakistan to evaluate the efficacy of Consensus Interferon (Infergen) in 40 patients. These patients were treated with Peg Interferon before, for 6 months." He added that after 1 year of the treatment, the HCVPCR, a test to detect live virus was positive in 15 percent of these patients. These patients were given 15 ucg of injection Infergen thrice weekly for 6 months and 80 percent of patients were HCVPCR negative which means they were free from disease, he added.