New therapies for hepatitis C

Abstract

Hepatitis C virus is an important public health threat, not only because of the high prevalence of this infection in western and third world countries, but also because of the high rate of resistance to the available antiviral therapy that consists on the use of pegylated interferon plus ribavirin. Currently, new forms of therapy are being developed based on a more precise knowledge of the structure and function of the viral proteins and of the strategies used by the virus to escape the immune and interferon systems. The new therapeutic approaches aim at different objectives: a) the inhibition of viral replication by blocking the viral protease and/or replicase; b) the use of other types of interferon with more potent antiviral effect, c) the induction of a specific anti-viral immune response by means of immunomodulatory compounds or therapeutic vaccination, d) the blockade of "de novo" infection of other cells with neutralizing antibodies, e) the induction of a antiviral state in the liver by transferring to this organ the gene of interferon and/or immunostimulating cytokines.