A new paper recently published suggests that despite the immense cost, it actually makes a lot of sense to give prisoners antiviral medication to treat hepatitis C. According to updated computer models, the new, more price-heavy drug combinations are actually more cost-effective than the older, less-effective drug combinations; of course, they are also more effective than simply not treating patients at all.
Senior study author Jeremy Goldhaber-Fiebert, of Stanford University, says 'Essentially what our model does is follow a hypothetical cohort of prisoners that looks like a prison population in the U.S. It allows us to ask a variety of 'what-if' questions and probe how sensitive our findings are to various factors.
According to the CDC, about 3.2 million people in the United States currently have hepatitis C. The research team believes that as many as 500,000 incarcerated prisoners make up a fair percentage of that population.
It was only up until very recently that hepatitis C treatment consisted of the drug combination interferon and ribavirin, which a patient would have to take for a year. Unfortunately side effects included flu-like symptoms; and it was only effective for a small percentage of patients.
Researchers found that prisoners using the more expensive, brand new drug Sovaldi
'Most people in will be out,' comments Dr. Anne Spaulding. 'We're looking at a disease that will take 30 years to progress. A lot of hepatitis C that we're not treating in the prison will end up being very costly not just for patients who are on Medicaid, but patients who do not have Medicaid who present to emergency rooms. Someone will have to pay.'
Spaulding was not involved with the study, but is an expert on hepatitis C infections among prisoners. She continues: 'I think the key message would be to those who control state budgets. There are benefits to considering the health of future taxpayers, future citizens and people returning to the community.'
