Photo: GLOBAL LOOK PRESS
The other day it became known that the American pharmaceutical giant MSD announced the cessation of supplies to our country of the antiviral drug Zepatier. This medication is used to treat chronic hepatitis C. Immediately on social networks they began to spread information that hepatitis patients in Russia will now have nothing to treat. “KP” verified this information as part of a joint project with “Noodles Media”, aimed at exposing false information.
“Zepatier accounts for about 9% of all drugs used in our country for the treatment of hepatitis C,” Nikolay Bespalov, a pharmaceutical market analyst and development director at RNC Pharma, told Komsomolskaya Pravda radio. According to the expert, Russian pharmaceutical companies are developing analogues of the American drug. At the same time, other drugs against hepatitis C are available in the Russian Federation, among them the most effective.
The independent head of infectious diseases at the Ministry of Health, Vladimir Chulanov, also confirmed that a change in the situation would not harm patients. “This decision will not affect the availability of hepatitis C therapy in Russia, the drug is neither indispensable nor unique,” the doctor told Rossiyskaya Gazeta. Chulanov pointed out that in our country all the drugs against hepatitis C that exist in the world are registered, “they are available, there are no interruptions in the supply,” stressed the representative of the Ministry of Health.
