The epidemiologic burden of hepatitis C virus infection in Latin America

Chronic infection with hepatitis C virus (HCV) is a major and growing public health concern worldwide, including in Latin America. With more efficacious therapies becoming available, decision-makers will require accurate estimates of disease prevalence to assess the potential impact of new treatments. However, few estimates of the epidemiologic burden, either overall or by country, are available for Latin America; and the potential impact of currently-available treatments on the epidemiologic burden of HCV in Latin America has not been assessed. To address this, we systematically reviewed twenty-five articles presenting population-based estimates of HCV prevalence from general population or blood donor samples, and supplemented those with publically-available data, to estimate the total number of persons infected with HCV in Latin America at 7.8 million (2010). Of these, over 4.6 million would be expected to have genotype 1 chronic HCV, based on published data on the risk of progression to chronic disease and the HCV genotype distribution of Latin America. Finally, we calculated that between 1.6 and 2.3 million persons with genotype 1 chronic HCV would potentially benefit from current treatments, based on published estimates of genotype-specific treatment responsiveness. In conclusion, these estimates demonstrate the substantial present epidemiologic burden of HCV, and quantify the impending societal and clinical burden from untreated HCV in Latin America.