Updated Training Manual for Treatment Advocates: Hepatitis C Virus & Coinfection with HIV
The purpose of this Training Manual is to provide information for you and your community. This information can be used to advocate for access to prevention and diagnosis of, and care and treatment for, hepatitis C virus (HCV).
The primary goals of the Training Manual are:
- to increase advocates’ knowledge about available HCV tests and treatments, particularly in the era of all-oral, highly effective direct-acting antiviral medications that treat all genotypes
- to jumpstart discussions on advocacy strategies that can be used to open up affordable access for more people with HCV.
Written by and for people who are not medical specialists, this manual was designed to help you understand basic information about HCV and coinfection with HIV: how it’s transmitted, how to prevent HCV, how people can find out if they have HCV, what happens to both HIV-negative and HIV-positive people who have HCV, testing and treatment options, drug-drug interactions, and other information used for making treatment decisions.
The Training Manual is organized into short sections, and each section can be presented and shared by a trainer or peer educator with a small group of people in one to two hours.
There are discussion points and action steps at the end of each section. The discussion points are intended to start conversations about the key issues raised in each section. The action steps are intended to start conversations about how to translate the key issues into advocacy in the community and to allow participants to find solutions together.
You can find the English and French versions of the manual attached at the bottom of this page. The Spanish version is here.
A slide deck accompanies each section of the manual to be used by trainers or educators in their advocacy workshops: here.