NOhep Medical Visionaries in May 2025

In the month of May, NOhep Medical Visionaries Forums were held at the International Society of Addiction Medicine Congress (ISAM) and the European Association for the Study of the Liver (EASL). Both forums presented the opportunity for visionaries to come together to explore barriers hepatitis elimination and the intersection of hepatitis, mental health and addiction.

NOhep Medical Visionaries Forum EASL 2025

Accelerate action now: Strategies to scale-up hepatitis elimination

The NOhep Medical Visionaries met on Friday 10 May 2025 at EASL to discuss innovative strategies to overcome the barriers to hepatitis elimination.

Speakers

Rachel Halford
President, World Hepatitis Alliance

Wendy Spearman
Emeritus Professor of Medicine and a Consultant Hepatologist, University of Cape Town

Anthony Martinez
Medical Director, Hepatology, Erie County Medical Center

Ajeet Singh Bhadoria
Additional Professor, AIIMS Rishikesh

Key points discussed:

Launch of the new NOhep Medical Visionaries principles: the principles have been updated to better reflect what it means to be a NOhep Medical Visionary. The principles are: educate peers, vocal ambassador, gather allies and advocate to governments. Further conversations highlighted why now, with less than five years to the elimination targets, the role of NOhep Medical Visionaries is so important.
Hepatitis C and syndemics: the overlap between hepatitis C, substance use, unstable housing, and mental health requires a comprehensive, person-centered care model. Addressing root causes of an individual’s behaviour, which is often related to mental health, is essential to prevent reinfection and promote long-term recovery and engaging mental health professionals in hepatitis testing and treatment can help expand access.
Hepatitis C self-testing: pilots have taken place in urban slums and prisons (which also utilised drones for delivery) in India and have showed high uptake and feasibility among people at risk of hepatitis C. This is an innovative strategy that takes testing closer to people and can be used as part of a comprehensive national testing policy.
Hepatitis B treatment: people are not being treated early enough and broader treatment strategies are needed. Decentralising care and new strategies for monitoring could improve adherence and outcomes.
Advocacy and Messaging: as we get closer to the 2030 targets we need to think about how we frame countries progress towards these and ensure continued urgency and action.

The meeting concluded with a call for sustained advocacy to drive meaningful progress toward hepatitis elimination, even beyond 2030.

NOhep Medical Visionaries Forum ISAM 2025

Addressing Addiction, Mental Health and Hepatitis to Improve Outcomes

For the first time, World Hepatitis Alliance (WHA) held a NOhep Medical Visionaries Forum at the International Society of Addiction Medicine Congress (ISAM) on Monday 26th May 2025. The forum was an opportunity to share the NOhep Medical Visionaries programme with a new audience and to discuss the importance of hepatitis screening and linkage to care in mental health and addiction settings during a fireside chat with Prof Jens Reimer, Professor of Psychiatry at University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf.

Insight was giving into how hepatitis C is addressed in psychiatry settings in Germany and despite the overlap between substance use, mental health issues and the risk of hepatitis C, major psychiatry conferences do not address hepatitis C. He stressed the need to have hepatitis C in the conversation.

In psychotherapy settings, especially in Germany, barriers such as lack of awareness of hepatitis C and not being trained conducting tests, hinder testing and patients must be referred to general practitioners, which rarely happens. Additionally, psychotherapy for individuals with addiction issues is often not accessible unless they are abstinent, further limiting intervention opportunities.

Discussions emphasised that many individuals with a past history of drug use, are not being screened and may unknowingly live with HCV for decades.

Mobile testing models were highlighted as effective solutions and Canadian examples demonstrated the success of training psychiatrists or in-house doctors to deliver treatment directly.

The forum highlighted the need for tailored services that reach patients where they already feel safe and WHA’s commitment to use the NOhep Medical Visionaries Programme can help drive awareness, advocacy, and structural change at the national and international levels.