Medical School Hotline: The Challenges of Hepatitis B Treatment in the US-Associated Pacific Islands

摘要

Instituting hepatitis B therapy in a low-resource Pacific Island setting is challenging. During 2018, members of the University of Hawai‘i Department of Family Medicine and Community Health (DFMCH) participated in the “Tuberculosis (TB) and Leprosy Free Majuro” campaign in the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) to identify and treat people with TB and Hansen’s disease (formerly called leprosy).1 The question of how to institute a vertical hepatitis B elimination program that dovetails with strengthening the primary health care system was highlighted. In this discussion, parallels are drawn with how treatment became available for HIV/AIDS and hepatitis C, two other viral diseases for which there was at one time no political will to treat in resource-poor settings.