Pakistan, May 14 -- The Ministry of Health and the World Health Organisation have launched a Rs 67 billion Prime Minister's Hepatitis C Elimination Programme, whose first phase will screen 1.6 million people and treat those who test positive. On paper, the ambition is historic. Pakistan carries the heaviest hepatitis C burden in the world, with roughly 10 million infections out of 50 million globally. Someone in this country dies from related complications every twenty minutes, and fewer than one-third of patients even know they carry the virus.

Sadly, ambition alone has never cured anyone. Pakistan has had a National Hepatitis Strategic Framework, provincial action plans, donor-supported pilots and micro-elimination experiments before. ...