Estimated prevalence of undiagnosed HCV infected individuals in Italy: A mathematical model by route of transmission and fibrosis progression

Abstract Background The universal treatment of diagnosed patients with chronic HCV infection has been widely conducted in Italy since 2017. However, the pool of individuals diagnosed but yet to be treated in Italy has been estimated to end around 2025, leaving a significant proportion of infected individuals undiagnosed/without care. Estimates of this population are currently unknown. Methods A probabilistic modelling approach was applied to estimate annual historical HCV incident cases by their age-group (0–100 years) distribution from available literature and Italian National database (1952 to October 2019). Viraemic infection rates were modelled on the main infection routes in Italy: peo…