HCV: From Screening To Cure, A Broad Partnership Within A Tough Background


Author: Tournadre M, Lesboueyries D, Bellaïche G, Touitou H

Theme: Models of Care Year: 2018

Background:
Our harm reduction’s center for drugs’ users is in the middle of parisian underprivileged
suburbs, the most important drugs’ trafficking, and a multicultural context where many
passing through people are found. Most of them being unable to reach care, or running away
from it, it’s our priority to bring them to it. We chose to grow a broad partnership, because of
the complexity of Hepatitis C, following every step and difficulty from screening to access to
treatment.
Description of model of care/intervention:
Our partnership :
 We got financial support in order to be trained to use rapid tests; indeed, we meet a
population away from health services.
 Our partnership with medical divisions (located close to us) enable a fast and
effective care
 This population’s administrative status often being a brake, we work closely with a
multidisciplinary system which, in addition to assisting people with complicated
procedures using a team of mediators, help access to treatment along.
 At last, as many non-French speaking people are found, some users, who have been
screened and/or taken care of before, can act as peer-leds’ translators.
Effectiveness:
300 to 400 drugs’ users (80% intravenous) live around our center. In one year, 82 of them
were screened. Among 47 who got a hcv-positive detection, at this time 11 could have
access to HCV treatment, and 10 were cured.
Conclusion and next steps:
The reality of HCV when it comes to drugs using is connected with many issues from
different fields. Apart from the difficulties linked with substance using itself, our model of
intervention made the screening and the access to hcv treatment faster and more frequent.
The next steps will consist in developing peer-leds’ system and our outreach work, meaning
more marauding with a new partnership we are currently working on.
Disclosure of Interest Statement:
The conference collaborators recognise the considerable contribution that industry partners
make to professional and research activities. We also recognise the need for transparency of
disclosure of potential conflicts of interest by acknowledging these relationships in publications

Download abstract Download Poster