Experience in the treatment of hepatitis C with direct-acting antivirals in a foreign population at a high-immigration area.

Abstract

immigrants from areas of high endemicity for hepatitis C represent a relevant risk group. The goal of this study was to analyze the characteristics of these patients in a high-immigration health care area, and to analyze the impact of promoting diagnosis and referral by means of training sessions in the primary care setting. a retrospective study in immigrant patients with HCV monoinfection treated with direct-acting antiviral agents in Almería between 2015 and 2020. Epidemiological and clinical variables were collected, as well as the impact of a micro-elimination approach. a total of 175 immigrant patients were enrolled, most of them from eastern Europe (52.5 %), followed by sub-Saharan Africa (21.1 %) and the Maghreb (14.8 %). Patients from sub-Saharan Africa and eastern Europe were younger (p = 0.002) and sub-Saharan subjects predominantly exhibited genotypes 2 and 3, whereas genotype 1 predominated in the rest of patients (p the immigrant population with HCV infection in our health care area exhibits homogeneous clinical and epidemiological characteristics. The efficacy of antiviral therapy is similar to that reported in the non-immigrant population, with higher rates of losses to follow-up and dosage errors, particularly in those who have been in the country for less time.