Hepatitis C: the next 25years.

Excellent progress has been made in the field of hepatitis C since the discovery of the causative virus in 1989. Screening tests have been produced to protect the blood supply, along with diagnostics to aid therapeutic management, as well as the recent approval of highly effective small-molecule drugs targeting the viral life cycle, which, given in combination, can now cure the vast majority of patients. Future urgent priorities include facilitating the accessibility of these drugs to all of the world's estimated 170 million carriers before liver cancer and other end-stage liver diseases occur, as well as producing a vaccine to protect individuals at high risk of infection, such as intravenous drug users. Effective control of this viral infection is now clearly in sight. This article introduces a symposium in Antiviral Research on "Hepatitis C: next steps toward global eradication."