Thanks to a human rights petition, starting in March 2021, prisoners will be able to perform a C-type jaundice • "Tests will enable life-saving treatment"

Following a human rights petition, the Prison Service will allow any incarcerated person to perform a test for hepatitis C. It is a viral hepatitis, one of the types of jaundice, a disease that has drug therapy that cures almost 100 percent of patients. 

Training in the Negev crescent facility for the absorption of Corona sick prisoners // Photo: Newsenders

Although treatment has been in the drug basket since 2015, the Prison Service has refused to do the initiated tests to find the appropriate patients, thus avoiding many prisoners.

Last week, the state updated the High Court that it commits from March 2021 to publish signage in the prison clinics, which will have information on the disease that will inform the detainees that they are eligible to be examined. The update was issued in a petition filed by human rights doctors in October 2018 against the IPS and the ministry The health, requiring IPS to conduct tests to detect the virus among prisoners.

Accessing the tests to the entire prison population is another step in the organization's commitment that as of August 2020, tests will be conducted for new detainees who are incarcerated in prison and belong to disease risk groups. 

For years, the IPS has refused to adopt the policy of detecting the virus among prisoners, claiming it does not have medical justification. During the petition hearings, and in light of criticism by the court and various medical community entities, such as the Association of Public Health Doctors and the Israeli Liver Research Society, which called for IPS Investigations, IPS announced in early 2020 that it was working to formulate a procedure to conduct tests for new detainees. Human rights doctors insisted that there was no medical justification for distinguishing new detainees from prisoners already in prison, and IPS has now announced the access of all incarcerated prisoners.

Hepatitis C is a virus that is transmitted to the bloodstream, damages the liver and can cause severe symptoms such as cirrhosis and liver cancer. The disease is asymptomatic and therefore it is often undiagnosed for many years, until severe liver damage occurs, to the point of implantation.

Three years of struggle

Studies in the world indicate a high prevalence of the virus among prisoners - between 15 and 30 percent in Western countries according to various studies, compared with about 2 percent in the general population of Israel, which is most often attributed to the history of drug injection. In view of this, health organizations such as the World Health Organization recommend that at-risk population prisoners justify detection tests. 

As of 2015, medicines that cost tens of thousands of shekels have been entered into the health basket for each patient, which results in the cure of the disease in more than 95 percent of patients. Early detection of the virus before the onset of symptoms and the development of severe liver damage can save many lives and reduce the burden and costs on the public health system.

Niv Michaeli of Human Rights Doctors said: "We are delighted that after about three years of IPS legal battle, we finally adopted our position that the entire prison population should be allowed to perform hepatitis C tests."

He added: "Performing the tests can save many people's lives and prevent them from developing severe morbidity that would have strained the public health system."