Journalists of Novaya Gazeta, the Georgian Ifact and the Greenhouse of Social Technologies published a special project on the difficulties of treating hepatitis C in Russia. On the Change.org platform, they launched a petition demanding the Russian Ministry of Health to adopt a separate government program to fight the virus.
Journalists told the story of 10 patients with hepatitis C. When they found out about their diagnosis, hepatitis C was an incurable disease, the course of treatment could cost about 1 million rubles, and small amount of people could have a monetary aid from the budget. The project «Together C» wrote about the patient community to solve these problems.
Deputy director of the non-profit partnership 'Eva' Aleksey Lakhov, creator of the first Russian site on hepatitis 'Ostanovka' Alexey Koshcheev and coordinator of the projects of the public organization 'Together against hepatitis' Zoya Kareva shared their stories of treatment and communication with patients.
'After several interviews with representatives of NGOs that defend the rights of patients, it became clear how global the problem is,' ideologist of the project, journalist Alisa Kustikova said. 'But understanding is not enough: in order to show to the readers the scale of the problem, we found people who shared their stories from the Czech Republic, Georgia and Russia. The project was done by twenty people, we were supported by the three largest NGOs. 'Together C' is a project on cooperation. Patients, journalists, human rights activists, partners from other media worked together. Now it's up to the readers. We are waiting for response, feedback and support. That is why our project ends with an open letter to the Ministry of Health.'
The authors of the project and activists wrote a petition for the creation of a program for the treatment of hepatitis C. They also demanded an additional budget to fight the disease and create a federal patient register. It will help to determine how many people need treatment. On the day of the fight against hepatitis C, on July 28, the collected signatures will be transferred to the Ministry of Health of Russia and the Minister of Health Veronika Skvortsova.
According to estimates of the reference center for monitoring of viral hepatitis of Rospotrebnadzor, 5.8 million people suffer from hepatitis C in Russia. You can get infected by the dentist, blood transfusion, during tattooing, manicure. Russia is one of the few countries where the obsolete treatment regimen with pegylated interferon with side effects is actively used.
Daniil Kuznetsov, «7x7»
