A drug recently accredited in the US for the treatment of chronic hepatitis could be used for the treatment of Egyptian hepatitis C patients, Alaa Awad, a professor at Egypt’s Theodor Bilharz Research Institute said.
On his facebook page, he wrote that the new drug prepared by US-based Merck, a single-tablet regimen called Grazoprevir/Elbasvir, can cure the kind hepatitis most common in Egypt, and it can also be beneficial for kidney failure patients undergoing dialysis.
According to Awad, the company will present the results of its research during a conference in Vienna this month.
Merck’s product has received the Breakthrough Therapy designation from the US Federal Drug Administration (FDA), the company said on Wednesday.
Egypt has one of the highest rates of hepatitis C infections in the world – at least 15 percent of the population suffers from the disease.
Last month, the distribution of Sovaldi, a treatment prepared by Gilead, another US pharmaceuticals company, began in Egypt. The Health Ministry says the cure can successfully stop the growth of the virus.
