Integrated viral hepatitis surveillance and prevention funding for health departments - the state of maine has maintained a viral hepatitis program since 2000

The goal of the viral hepatitis program is to reduce the disease burden of viral hepatitis in maine by increasing access to screening, increasing the number of individuals aware of their disease status, and increasing treatment services. These activities promote the viral hepatitis care continuum, a term readily used by the united states CDC to establish a continuum of care for the client from the steps of initial screening to treatment. Maine has not had a dedicated surveillance and prevention arm within the larger program. Under this grant, maine aims to hire a viral hepatitis surveillance coordinator (vhsc) and a viral hepatitis prevention coordinator (vhpc) to address the surveillance, data, prevention, and outbreak response needs surrounding viral hepatitis in the state. The vhsc will use surveillance, insurance reimbursement, demographic, and health care data to determine regions in maine that are more heavily affected by viral hepatitis or have gaps in resources to address the disease. Additionally, the vhsc will work with the vhpc to create a viral hepatitis elimination committee that will help establish a formal elimination plan as well as assist in the implementation and creation of an outbreak detection and response plan. The vhsc will be responsible for monitoring viral hepatitis surveillance activities including data analysis, lab result monitoring, and ensure completeness of case reports to effectively understand and improve the viral hepatitis disease burden and inform prevention service provision. The vhpc will expand partnerships with high impact settings like jails, homeless shelters, recovery centers, medication assisted treatment (mat) programs, and syringe service programs (ssps) to fill existing gaps in care, prevention, and harm reduction for people at risk for acquiring viral hepatitis particularly people who inject drugs (pwid). People who inject DRU GS are a vulnerable population accounting for a large proportion of new hepatitis b and c cases in maine. The activities supported by this grant will provide a service bundle through patient navigators and other pwid serving groups to link pwid to essential support services like ssps, mat, primary care, naloxone, hepatitis c care, and hepatitis a and b vaccination. Both the vhpc and vhsc SIT within the maine CDC and maintains strong relationships with the infectious disease epidemiology program, ryan white HIV care program, maine immunization program, and the office of behavioral health.