Add telaprevir

To the 2-drug team to combat the virus deadlier than HIV

THE Hepatitis C virus has infected over 170 million people worldwide which is four times the number of hiv infected people. India, alone, has three million cases. The existing treatment is a combination of two drugs: interferon and ribavirin, which together prevent the virus from replicating. But the success rate of the prevailing two-drug combination is less than 50 per cent because it does not completely cure. It only slows the progression of liver damage; the combinations