What Are the Prospects for Controlling Hepatitis C?

May 19 this year marked World Hepatitis Day [1].This event does not usually make the headlines in the same way that World AIDS Day does, but viral hepatitis affects about half a billion people globally (perhaps one in 12 of the global population), and so the relative publicity associated with World Hepatitis Day does not accurately reflect the importance of hepatitis as a public health problem. The two major hepatitis viruses—hepatitis C virus (HCV) and hepatitis B virus (HBV)—share a number of features. Both viruses are readily spread through the transfer of infected blood or blood products. Both cause persistent infections and share an insidious progression after decades of asymptomatic carriage that creates a huge burden of end-stage liver disease and liver cancer. Thus, both viruses are major public health problems across the globe. However, there are substantial differences between these infections in terms of the risk groups affected, the geographical distribution of the viruses, and the tools at our disposal to deal with them.