Vietnam will have a low-cost drug to treat hepatitis C

The Ministry of Health has just reached an agreement with the pharmaceutical company Gilead Sciences (USA) to buy a drug to treat hepatitis C at a price of only 1% of the price of the invented drug currently sold in the US market.

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Gilead Sciences will produce and supply enough hepatitis C treatment drugs to Vietnam, and support Vietnamese pharmaceutical companies in producing hepatitis C treatment drugs to have drug prices lower than import prices.

Gilead Sciences will also provide the Ministry of Health with a list of foreign pharmaceutical companies that are permitted to manufacture raw materials or finished products for the company's hepatitis C treatment drugs under voluntary licensing.

In Vietnam, it is estimated that about 5% of the population is infected with the hepatitis C virus, 30% of people with chronic hepatitis C are at risk of cirrhosis or liver cancer. There is no vaccine to prevent this disease. The disease is transmitted through blood and from mother to child./.

According to VTV