EC Partnership is a collaboration of service providers, government departments and researchers in Victoria who are aiming to dramatically increase uptake of treatment for hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection among people who inject drugs (PWID).
EC Partnership is led by the Burnet Institute and involves a close collaborative network of partners including: Department of Health and Human Services Victoria, Justice Health Victoria, Hepatitis Victoria, Harm Reduction Victoria, St Vincent’s Hospital Victoria, and the Alfred.
It is funded by a partnership grant from NHMRC with contributions by Gilead Sciences.
This partnership aims to:
Support community-based treatment programs to increase HCV treatment uptake in PWID using nurse-led models of care in the community and the prison system
Assess the feasibility and impact of treating over 1500 PWID annually in Victoria on prevalence and incidence of HCV in community and prison populations
Inform HCV elimination models in Australia and globally
The EC partnership will provide support to community and services through five key components:
Health Promotion
Training & Education
Clinical Pathways
Data Systems & Surveillance
Research and Evaluation
These components will support the following activities:
Increasing demand for HCV treatment among PWID through health promotion
Increasing capacity of community services to provide HCV testing & treatment with DAAs through education & training
Increasing the capacity to provide HCV testing & treatment in prison with DAAs through additional nurse support
Increasing access to DAAs by streamlining clinical pathways, supporting new models of care, trailing new testing diagnostics and & providing additional resources (nurse support & fibroscans)
Establish an integrated HCV surveillance system to more accurately monitor trends and evaluate the impact of DAA uptake on HCV prevalence and incidence over time and model the impact of treating PWID to inform HCV elimination models in Australia and globally
If you’re a clinical site or community organisation, we would love to chat about how we could work together.
Please contact [email protected] with any queries.