What to know
Summary
A new CDC study finds that providing curative treatment for hepatitis C could result in billions of dollars in medical cost savings, in addition to the known benefits of averting substantial human suffering and saving lives.
This study was published in the journal BMC Health Services Research.
Direct-acting antivirals (DAAs) are a curative treatment recommended for essentially everyone with hepatitis C. While the one-time cost of curative DAA treatment is approximately $25K, the study shows that over the long term, the cost-savings are substantial:
- Curative treatment for hepatitis C can save on average $65,841 (2022 USD) in lifetime medical costs per person.
- Even applied to the most conservative estimate of the population living with hepatitis C (2.2 million), treatment with DAAs could result in lifetime cost savings of $147 billion in direct medical costs alone.
This analysis is only a minimum estimate of the costs prevented through curative treatment, as it did not account for other illness-associated expenses—such as transportation, caretaking, productivity losses, or reductions in quality of life. The financial savings could be much greater.
Hepatitis C remains a serious threat to health and wellbeing. Left untreated, it can cause severe liver damage, liver cancer, or death. Despite the existence of DAAs as a safe and highly effective curative oral treatment for hepatitis C, the infection still contributed to the deaths of over 10,000 people in 2024.
Ensuring the more than 2 million people living with this potentially deadly virus have knowledge of their infection and access to curative treatment is vital to preventing unnecessary costs, suffering and death.
Visit cdc.gov for more information on hepatitis C testing and treatment.