Limited provision of diagnostic services to Victorians living with hepatitis C antibodies, 2001-2012: a multi-level modelling analysis

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: To determine what percentage of Victorians with a history of notified hepatitis C exposure received appropriate follow-up diagnostic services between 2001 and 2012. METHODS: Individual notification data and aggregate Medicare and supplementary testing data were entered into a compartmental transition model, which was used to estimate the percentage of people with a hepatitis C notification who were yet to receive either a negative diagnostic test for viral nucleic acid, or a test for viral genotype, at the end of 2012. RESULTS: We estimate that 58.2% (uncertainty interval: 42.2%, 72.4%) of Victorians with a hepatitis C notification between 2001 and 2012 did not receive either a ne..