India's Fight to Combat Hepatitis

The National Viral Hepatitis Control Programme (NVHCP), launched in 2018, adopts a health‑systems approach to meet India’s 2030 hepatitis‑combat goal. It integrates with existing schemes such as the Universal Immunisation Programme, National AIDS Control Programme, and National Tuberculosis Elimination Programme to provide free screening, diagnostics and treatment for hepatitis B and C, and to ensure universal birth‑dose vaccination and hepatitis B immunoglobulin for newborns of infected mothers. The programme uses a paper‑less NVHCP‑MIS portal for patient management and reports seroprevalence data from the 2021 HIV sentinel surveillance (0.85% for hepatitis B and 0.29% for hepatitis C). A toll‑free number (1800‑11‑6666) offers information and service‑site details nationwide.