Cost‐effectiveness of strategies for testing current hepatitis C virus infection

Abstract

Strategies involving HCVAb testing in venipuncture blood, whether laboratory conducted or using a point-of-care assay, when followed by quantitative NAT done reflexively or in separately drawn blood, are comparably economical and suitably viremia sensitive. Less cost-effective is point-of-care HCVAb testing in fingerstick blood followed by NAT in venipuncture blood. Least cost-effective is the strategy requiring the tested person to return for NAT.