Each year, on the 31st of August, people around the world come together to mark International Overdose Awareness Day. Initiated in 2001 by Melburnian Sally J Finn, International Overdose Awareness Day is an opportunity to pause, grieve, memorialise lives lost, and to stimulate frank conversations about overdose and other drug-related harms and how to prevent them.
Since late 2019, COVID-19 has been the global health crisis absorbing much of our attention. Efforts to respond to it, including the redeployment of people and resources, have necessarily had impacts on other public health programs and pandemics. The World Health Organization’s ambitious goal to eliminate hepatitis C by 2030 is one program that has been slowed and, in some places, stopped in its tracks by COVID-19.
What does life look like for people after they have cleared hepatitis C? Do people whose blood shows no detectable amount of the hepatitis C virus need to inform their doctor or dentist about their previous hepatitis C status? What about prospective employers or insurance providers? Does hepatitis C–related stigma and discrimination remain a challenge for people post-cure? In what ways, and in what settings?