A policy analysis exploring hepatitis C risk, prevention, testing, treatment and reinfection within Australia's prisons

Abstract

Background: Hepatitis C (HCV) is a global public health concern. There is a global prevalence of 15% among the world's prisoner population, suggesting the need for priority HCV treatment among this population group. New highly efficacious therapies with low side effects, known as directing-acting antivirals, became available under Australia's universal healthcare scheme on 1 March 2016. This creates an opportune time to trial treatment as prevention as an elimination strategy for HCV in prison settings. This paper examines whether policies in Australian jurisdictions support treatment scale-up to achieve elimination among this priority population. Methods: A comprehensive search was conducted using Google and other web-based search functions to locate all publicly available policies in each Australian state and territory related to HCV health and HCV-related prison health. Ministers (corrections and health) were contacted from each jurisdiction to identify any additional policies. Inductive and deductive analyses were conducted for each jurisdiction, with documents being assessed against a set of four a priori criteria. Documents included in the analysis were current at 1 September 2017, or 18 months following treatment availability. Results: A total of 18 documents were located, including both health (n = 12) and corrections/prison health (n = 6) documents relevant to HCV. Jurisdictions ranged in their commitments for delivering HCV harm reduction strategies and treatment availability within the prison setting. Conclusion: Few jurisdictions have updated or published HCV-related health or prisoner health policies following availability of directing-acting antivirals. Current policies do not provide effective support for implementing treatment scale-up that could be possible under universal access to HCV treatment among this priority population.