Experts in the field of hepatology predict that within the next few decades, hepatitis C may no longer be considered a serious public health problem if new anti-HCV drugs are as effective as early studies have shown and if related measures diagnose more patients who are able to receive treatment. At a press conference organized by the Hepatitis C Foundation on the eve of the 49th Annual Meeting of the European Association for the Study of Liver Diseases and the 2014 International Liver Conference, Mark Thursz, Professor of Hepatology at Imperial College London, argued that the hepatitis C treatment landscape has changed radically in the last few years. Charles Gore, chief executive of the Hepatitis C Foundation, told reporters that the progress made with anti-HCV drugs by 2030 may allow it to stop HCV philanthropy. He believes the prospect of essentially eliminating hepatitis C may emerge, and in many cases the chances of such a scenario occurring in health care are unlikely. Currently, only <3% of HCV patients are cured each year due to low treatment rates and the limitations of available treatments. New, more effective treatments are only part of the solution to this problem and are still needed to ensure that patients receive a diagnosis before physicians can give them a chance to obtain a cure. This year's new approval of Sofosbuvir, along with other drugs expected to be approved soon such as simeprevir and daclatasvir, is really good news for hepatitis C patients, as these drugs bring hepatitis C treatment into the era of all-oral drug therapy. The new drugs have cure rates of up to 95 percent. Matthew Cramp, consultant hepatologist at Plymouth Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, believes that the duration of treatment for HCV can be reduced to 8 or 12 weeks with the new drugs. So far, resistance has not been a problem even with powerful drug combinations. The development of an epidemiological model of hepatitis will allow clinicians to predict the efficacy of new treatments. If current trends are followed, the model shows that the prevalence of HCV in England is slowly declining. The current level of HCV patients in England is about 144,000 and will fall to just over 80,000 by 2030. With the advent of new drugs and increasing levels of HCV diagnosis, this figure could be as low as 6,000 cases in the best case scenario. Mark Thursz, on the other hand, believes that greater public awareness and targeted screening campaigns are also needed to get more HCV patients diagnosed, and that HCV treatment needs to move out of specialty centers and into health care settings where patients are more likely to be seen. Matthew Cramp emphasized that more proactive programs to identify HCV patients are still needed. It will be practical to continue to increase the rate of new diagnoses, which will result in 15,000 new patients being diagnosed annually by 2018. The 49th Annual Meeting of the European Association for the Study of Liver Diseases and the opening session of the 2014 International Liver Conference also saw the first release of new WHO guidelines for the screening, care and treatment of hepatitis C. Among the guidelines' nine key recommendations is the need for increased screening of HCV-infected patients - closely aligned with the Hepatitis C Foundation's policy goals.