Vietnamese patients, especially the underprivileged, can buy the medication made by the US bio-pharmaceutical company at the cost of just one percent of the price in the US market to treat hepatitis C infections.
According to the government’s website, Gilead Sciences will make and provide enough drug to treat hepatitis C patients in the country as well as will as assist Vietnamese pharmaceutical enterprises in producing generic drugs to treat hepatitis C in the future.
Gilead Sciences plans to provide the health ministry with a list of foreign pharmaceutical companies it has authorized to supply materials for manufacturing drugs to treat hepatitis C.
Based on the index of authorized foreign pharmaceutical companies, Vietnamese Ministry of Health can import the medication to have low-priced drugs.
It is estimated that five percent of the Vietnam population is infected with hepatitis C and 30 percent people having chronic hepatitis are at risk of cirrhosis or liver cancer.
There has been no vaccine against the disease which is transmitted via blood transfusion, mother-to-children and sexual intercourse.
