Eight weeks is enough
The efficacy of an 8-week treatment course was established in a study of 63 MSM in the Netherlands and Belgium. They were 47 years old, on average, and all but three were HIV positive; two-thirds had HCV genotype 1, and the rest had genotype 4, some with extremely high viral loads.
Subjects received grazoprevir/elbasvir (Zepatier) once daily for 8 weeks, beginning at a mean of 4.5 months after their estimated infection date, and all within 6 months. Twelve weeks after the end of therapy, 59 (94%) were negative for HCV RNA on blood tests. Three of the patients who were still positive for HCV had new infections; the remaining patient had relapsed, and was the only true treatment failure.
Dr. Anne Boerekamps