Robert Hindes, MD, received his board certification in infectious diseases while completing his fellowship training at Harvard Medical School and New England Deaconess Hospital. In 2014, Robert Hindes, MD, cofounded Trek Therapeutics, a company that aims to develop accessible hepatitis C virus (HCV) therapies for patients around the world. One of the regions targeted by Trek for clinical trials and marketing of drug is Sub-Saharan Africa, especially Egypt. The incidence of HCV in Egypt is the highest in the world, approximately 15%, and a much lower percentage have HIV/HCV co-infection.
In July 2015, The Lancet Infectious Diseases journal released the results of a study on the prevalence of HIV and HCV co-infection in Sub-Saharan Africa. Researchers surveyed the Medline and Embase databases, pulling data from January 2002 to December 2014 studies with HCV seroprevalence. Although researchers found a high prevalence of HCV in HIV-positive adults in the Sub-Saharan African population, they concluded that larger population studies need to be available to monitor trends.
While HCV data from Sub-Saharan regions is limited, the World Gastroenterology Organisation estimates that around 30 million people are infected. However, there is speculation that more people have an HIV/ hepatitis B virus co-infection than an HIV/HCV combination, probably showing that there are less people engaging in injection drug use.
In July 2015, The Lancet Infectious Diseases journal released the results of a study on the prevalence of HIV and HCV co-infection in Sub-Saharan Africa. Researchers surveyed the Medline and Embase databases, pulling data from January 2002 to December 2014 studies with HCV seroprevalence. Although researchers found a high prevalence of HCV in HIV-positive adults in the Sub-Saharan African population, they concluded that larger population studies need to be available to monitor trends.
While HCV data from Sub-Saharan regions is limited, the World Gastroenterology Organisation estimates that around 30 million people are infected. However, there is speculation that more people have an HIV/ hepatitis B virus co-infection than an HIV/HCV combination, probably showing that there are less people engaging in injection drug use.