NHS board data on the prevalent number of people diagnosed with HCV and last known to be RNA positive in Scotland

About this release

This release by Public Health Scotland (PHS) provides the latest data on the estimated numbers of people diagnosed with chronic HCV in Scotland by NHS Board to inform Scottish Government treatment targets and support efforts to eliminate HCV by 2024.

* If available, the last known NHS Board of residence held on the Community Health Index (CHI) database is assigned to an individual, otherwise the NHS Board allocated at the time of their HCV diagnosis is used. 
**Involves all individuals ever diagnosed HCV antibody-positive and were last known to be either RNA positive or RNA status not known, and have a CHI number attached to their diagnosis record enabling record linkage to mortality, migration, HCV testing and clinical data. Those who were known to have died or migrated by November 2021 were excluded. Individuals are considered to have chronic HCV if their most recent RNA status was positive (i.e. PCR or Ag positive) and there was no evidence to indicate that they had since cleared their infection from therapy (including those treated for sufficient duration with direct-acting antivirals). 
***Orkney, Shetland, Western Isles 

Data sources: 

Testing: PHS HCV Test Database, data to 31^st May 2022

Diagnoses: PHS HCV Diagnosis Database, data to 31^st May 2022

Treatment: PHS HCV Clinical Database, data to 31st March 2021; Additional data from Edinburgh Western General hospital to 31st May 2022. 

Deaths: National Records Scotland Death Records – linked data to November 2021 

Migrated (and most recent NHS Board of Residence): PHS CHI Database, linked data to November 2021 

Background

On 31 July 2019, the Scottish Government committed to eliminate HCV as a major public health concern by 2024.

Prior to that, the World Health Organization (WHO) had set global targets in 2016 for the elimination of HCV as a public health threat. This included diagnosing 90% of those infected, treating 80% of those diagnosed and reducing mortality from HCV by 65% by 2030.

The vision for Scotland was to not only achieve these WHO targets 6 years in advance of 2030, but also to commit to additional targets on reducing:

• the number of people living with chronic HCV infection (to 5,000 or fewer)
• the number of people developing or dying from HCV-related severe disease (to fewer than 10 new presentations/deaths per year for each of the three outcomes of decompensated cirrhosis (DC), hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and death due to DC and/or HCC among people with chronic HCV infection at the time of presentation/death.