Post-crisis imaginaries in the time of direct-acting antiviral hepatitis C treatment

Until the recent introduction of direct-acting antiviral (DAA) medications, only available hepatitis C treatments were lengthy and onerous interferon-based therapies, with relatively weak success rates. While experiences treatment have been well documented, there is a need to better understand how ‘old’ shape contemporary experiences. This article uses concept ‘post-crisis’ developed in critical scholarship on HIV/AIDS, theorisations ‘curative time’, explore relationship between legacies therapies. In mobilising these concepts, we trouble linear temporal logics that take for granted distinctions past present, old new, cure post-cure, draw attention fluidity time overlapping co-constitutive terrains meaning Drawing 50 interviews people affected by C, argue curative imaginary DAA – is, framing applied which expected assumed shaped logic crisis. Here, knowledge possibilities new living remain tethered crisis accounts interferon. Unlike disease itself was figured as crisis, many participants described crisis: worse than C. widely simple easy, not so straightforward crisis/post-crisis relation central this complexity . We conclude considering significance post-crisis enactments understanding plateauing uptake, reflect futures ‘cure’ address ongoing constitutive effects treatments.