The UK-Georgia Professional Network and the “Open Society Georgia Foundation” organized a discussion on the theme: “Hepatitis C Treatment in Georgia” on April 1, 2010 in “Betsy’s” Hotel. The issues related to Hepatitis C spread, diagnostics and state funding of the treatment accessibility were discussed during the meeting.
The representatives of the government and non-governmental organizations, as well as independent experts participated in the discussion process.
During the meeting the representatives of Health and Social Programs stated that in order for the Hepatitis C treatment issue to become one of the main priorities for the State, the non-governmental sector must prepare a State Program Project and the Budget (with concrete economic estimations) with assistance from the team of professionals. The document submitted to the government should contain different mechanisms of the co-financing of the Hepatitis C treatment and should define those prioritized groups of the population who will be eligible for the treatment using the co-financing from the government. It is essential to indicate the number of those patients who will be able to use this scheme in the future.
The group working on Hepatitis C diagnostics and treatment accessibility issues is comprised of the representatives of civil society and in the next few days together with the professionals and experts from the relevant field will start elaborating the strategy, action plan and concrete proposal to be submitted to the government.