Egypt has contracted US pharmaceuticals firm Gilead to make a new hepatitis C drug which will be on the market starting November, an official source at the Health Ministry told Al-Masry Al-Youm.
Harvoni (Sovaldi+ Ledipasvir) won the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)’s approval last December and includes a recovery rate of more than 95 percent, without the need for interferon.
Hossam Abdel Ghaffar, the ministry’s spokesperson, told Al-Masry Al-Youm that a third drug, Olysio, will also be added to the list of hepatitis C drugs offered on the market, in combination with Sovaldi, which Gilead began selling on the Egyptian market last month.
Egypt has one of the highest rates of hepatitis C infections in the world – at least 15 percent of the population suffers from the disease.
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
