Health Minister Davit Sergeenko presented the treatment effort for hepatitis C patients.

Davit Sergeenko. (Interpressnews.)

TBILISI, DFWatch–One month from now, Georgia begins an ambitious government program to treat 5,000 hepatitis C patients.

The program starts on April 21, and is focused on those patients who need treatment the most.

Health Minister Davit Sergeenko said at a press conference on Tuesday that the first batch of medicines will arrive soon after the signing.

“However I want to underline that the patients who will start getting treatment and patients with hepatitis C must be well-informed and acknowledge that treatment doesn’t mean that [their] liver function will be completely restored. This [treatment] is against the infection and not to improve liver  function,” he underlined.

Sergeenko also said that when some patients learned that this project was coming, they stopped taking care of themselves and quit their special diets, hoping to get treatment. They started drinking alcohol and are not following basic precautions.

“Their actions are categorically unacceptable and it is an absolutely fatal attitude towards this disease which carries huge risks,” he added.

Project launch should have been in March but has been delayed, because a new drug was added to the list.