Under National Viral Hepatitis Control Programme, by which year the objective is to eliminate viral hepatitis-C?

Question

UnlockIAS · Accepted Answer

Correct — D, 2030. The National Viral Hepatitis Control Programme (NVHCP) was launched by the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on 28 July 2018 (World Hepatitis Day) and is implemented under the National Health Mission. Its stated aim is to combat hepatitis and achieve countrywide elimination of Hepatitis C by 2030, along with a significant reduction in the infected population and in the morbidity and mortality associated with Hepatitis B and C. The year is not arbitrary: it is locked to SDG target 3.3 and to the WHO global health sector strategy of eliminating viral hepatitis as a public health threat by 2030.

Why the other options are wrong — (a) No Government of India or WHO document fixes 2033 for hepatitis elimination. It is a near-year decoy — the elimination architecture is pegged to the 2030 SDG deadline, not to a year beyond it.  (b) Not a target year in the NVHCP or in any WHO hepatitis strategy. India's other disease missions carry their own years (TB, sickle cell anaemia), but none of them is 2032 either.  (c) The closest and therefore most tempting decoy, but wrong: NVHCP documents and the WHO strategy both say 2030. A one-year shift is the standard way this question is spoiled.

Concept: Viral hepatitis is inflammation of the liver caused by five distinct viruses — A, B, C, D and E. They differ in how they spread and in what can be done about them: A and E travel by the faeco-oral route (contaminated food and water) and cause acute illness; B, C and D are blood-borne / body-fluid infections and can become chronic, leading to cirrhosis and liver cancer. The NVHCP, launched in 2018 under the National Health Mission, covers all five, and provides free screening and free treatment. It is one of the few national programmes in India whose headline promise is the elimination of a specific virus — Hepatitis C — by 2030.

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