An Abbotsford man wants the provincial government to fund more people to receive the medication that cured him of chronic hepatitis C, a viral liver disease.
Chris Robinson, 56, said it looked like he was on his way to receiving a long-awaited liver transplant to save his life last year when doctors told him, “Transplant? Remove it from your vocabulary.”
At the time, Robinson had been in the midst of a six-month course of a relatively new treatment that many in the medical field have termed “groundbreaking.”
Robinson’s treatment combined two drugs – Sovaldi and Ibavyr – that in clinical trials saw cure rates of up to 95 per cent in hepatitis C patients.
This meant that the hep C virus was not detected in patients’ blood when measured three months after treatment.
The new drugs were approved by Health Canada for use in November 2013 and made available to patients last year.
The problem is that the treatment is expensive – about $55,000 for a 12-week course of Sovaldi – and not everyone in need can afford it or will be approved for coverage by provincial PharmaCare. 
Robinson said he was approved by PharmaCare because he was in the end stages of the disease, but he believes it should be available to everyone who needs it.
“If you have a cure, then give it to them. If a person has a headache, you give them an Aspirin and it goes away … It’s like dangling chemo in front of a cancer patient and saying, ‘You can’t have it.’”
Dr. Eric Yoshida, one of the province’s leading liver specialists and head of the department of gastroenterology at the University of B.C., agrees.
Yoshida, who has treated Robinson, was involved in the clinical trials and in the ongoing use of the medication, and he says the results have been “very gratifying.” He said he is continuing to see the 95 per cent cure rate that was demonstrated in the trials.
Yoshida believes the expense of the drugs far outweighs long-term costs such as ongoing hospital stays, transplant surgeries, and the physical and emotional toll on patients.
For example, the estimated cost of a liver transplant is $500,000 to $1 million per patient, including the surgery and after-costs.
“A lot of patients are still being denied access to these drugs, and it doesn’t make any sense … It’s better to treat them with a safe and effective therapy … than taking a gamble,” Yoshida said.
Robinson, the single dad of a 16-year-old son, credits the treatment with saving his life.
He believes he contracted hep C when he occasionally shared needles to shoot cocaine from 1985 to 1990 while he was living in Ottawa.
Robinson, a former construction worker, has long been clean and sober, and this was the only time in his life that he shared needles.
He was diagnosed in 2010, when he began displaying symptoms such as a hard, swollen stomach and fatigue. He was told that he was suffering from cirrhosis of the liver, caused by a chronic hep C infection.
Robinson was not a candidate for the only existing hep C treatment at the time – interferon – nor was he yet eligible to be put on the waiting list for a liver transplant.
Over the next few years, his condition worsened, resulting in an incident in May 2015 that almost led to his death.
He was alone at home when blood vessels in his chest ruptured, and he collapsed. He was able to call 911, and paramedics arrived in time to rush him to the hospital.
“They said, ‘Another 10 minutes and you would have been dead,’ ” Robinson recalled.
He spent four days in intensive care, and shortly after was placed on the new drug treatment for six months. Five months into the regimen, he checked in with a phone call to his doctor’s office.
They told him the hep C virus had not been detected in his blood since week five.
“I asked her four or five times, ‘Are you serious? Are you for real?’ … I couldn’t believe it.”
Robinson is now nearing the six-month mark post-treatment, and his blood is still clear of the virus.
Yoshida said these results are typical and it is likely that most patients will require only a one-time treatment, although the long-term impacts still aren’t clear.
Robinson still has health effects from the liver damage – such as fatigue, brain fog, memory loss and difficulty sleeping – but his life has been extended, and he has greater peace of mind.
“At least now, my liver’s not being chewed on,” he says. 
HIGH COST OF TREATMENT
An estimated 250,000 Canadians have been diagnosed with chronic hepatitis C and could potentially benefit from new treatment that has shown 95 per cent cure rates in patients in clinical trials.
But the cost of the drug Sovaldi – $55,000 for 12 weeks – means that not everybody in need is receiving it.
A spokesperson with the B.C. Ministry of Health said the drug could cost the ministry “millions of dollars a year” and it is currently being targeted to the patients “who will most benefit.”
The spokesperson said in order to qualify for Sovaldi and other related medications, a hep C patient must show evidence of liver fibrosis (an advanced condition often leading to transplants), not currently be taking other hep C drugs, and be unable to tolerate the effects of older treatments.
PharmaCare has approved treatment with these new medications to about 2,500 people from March 2015 to February 2016.
Liver specialist Dr. Eric Yoshida said the high cost of Sovaldi, manufactured by Gilead Sciences in California, is warranted, given the cost of research and clinical trials that would have gone into bringing the drug to the market.
But he said the cost should decrease over time, hopefully making it accessible to more people.
Abbotsford has one of the highest rates of hepatitis C in the Fraser Health region. In 2015, there were 114 people with acute and chronic forms of the disease in Abbotsford. This translates into a rate of 80.8 per 100,000 population, compared to the average rate across Fraser Health of 41.9 per 100,000.
Fraser Health spokesperson Tasleem Juma said Abbotsford’s higher rate can be attributed to more intravenous drug users in the community. But she said the agency is working with municipal and community partners to ensure individuals have access to harm-reduction services.
WHAT IS HEPATITIS C?
Hepatitis C is a viral disease that leads to swelling of the liver. Many people who become infected never feel sick and recover completely. If your body is not able to fight off the virus, you may develop chronic hepatitis, which can lead to liver scarring (cirrhosis), liver failure and even liver cancer.
It is spread through blood-to-blood contact, such as by using injection drugs; getting tattoos, piercings, pedicures, manicures or medical procedures without properly sterilized equipment; or having had blood transfusions or received blood products before 1990.
Symptoms can include fatigue, nausea, reduced appetite, abdominal pain and jaundice (yellowing of the skin and eyes).
For more information, visit the Canadian Liver Foundation’s website at liver.ca.