Nearly 20 percent of Rohingya refugees tested in the camps of Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh have an active hepatitis C infection, according to a recent study carried out by Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) and Epicentre, the organization's epidemiology and medical research arm.
These refugees have been living in precarious conditions since 2017 after fleeing targeted violence and persecution in neighboring Myanmar. Now they are trapped in camps they cannot leave and reliant on humanitarian aid. But lifesaving screening, testing, and treatment services are nearly non-exisent in Cox's Bazar, and MSF is the only provider of hepatitis C care for thousands of people in the camps. In light of the alarming findings of the study, we are urgently calling for other actors to step up and help provide hepatitis C care.
"Every day, hundreds of patients line up in a seemingly endless queue outside the MSF specialized clinic in Cox's Bazar in the hope of being cured," explained Dr. Wasim Firuz, deputy medical coordinator at MSF. "They have witnessed the devastation caused by hepatitis C, having lost family members here or when they were living in Myanmar."
For the past four years, Dr. Firuz and his team have been able to treat only a tiny proportion of the Rohingya refugees affected by this infectious disease, which is often diagnosed in several members of the same family. This is the case of Mujibullah, whose wife and two sisters are infected with the hepatitis C virus (HCV). His mother, who has now died from it, was worried that the virus would spread to the whole family, and about the cost of treatment.
