Screening Strategies for Hepatitis C Virus

Since May 2016, the World Health Organization (WHO) has advocated for the elimination of hepatitis C virus (HCV) as a public health threat by 2030, defined as an 80% reduction in HCV incidence and 65% reduction in HCV-related mortality compared with 2015. Targets for achieving these goals include reaching service-coverage targets of diagnosing 90% and treating 80% of chronic HCV infections.(1) This elimination goal was driven by recent advances in the development of highly effective HCV direct-acting antivirals (DAAs).(2) However, it is estimated that less than 20% of all chronically infected individuals were aware of their infection status in 2015 (Fig. 1).(1) This highlights that case-finding will be a major challenge for scaling up treatment to reach the WHO elimination goals, especially in lowand middle-income country (LMIC) settings where