Analysis of hepatitis C cascade of care in Qatar, 2017: a teaching case study
Sayed Himatt, Amjad Idiris, Elmoubasher Abd Farag, Hamad Al-Romaihi, Mohamed Al-Thani, Moutaz Derbala, Saad AlKaabi, Yousef Khader, Malak A Shaheen
Corresponding author: Sayed Himatt, Public Health Department, Ministry of Public Health-Doha, Qatar 
Received: 05 Mar 2019 - Accepted: 09 Mar 2019 - Published: 16 May 2019
Domain: Infectious diseases epidemiology
Keywords: Hepatitis, surveillance, Qatar
This article is published as part of the supplement Case Studies for Public Health in the Eastern Mediterranean Region - 2019, commissioned by Yousef S Khader (yskhader@just.edu.jo).
©Sayed Himatt et al. Pan African Medical Journal (ISSN: 1937-8688). This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution International 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Cite this article: Sayed Himatt et al. Analysis of hepatitis C cascade of care in Qatar, 2017: a teaching case study. Pan African Medical Journal. 2019;33(1):17. [doi: 10.11604/pamj.supp.2019.33.1.18623]
Available online at: https://www.panafrican-med-journal.com//content/series/33/1/17/full
Supplement 
Analysis of hepatitis C cascade of care in Qatar, 2017: a teaching case study
Analysis of hepatitis C cascade of care in Qatar, 2017: a teaching case study
Sayed Himatt1,&, Amjad Idiris2, Elmoubasher Abd Farag1, Hamad Al-Romaihi1, Mohamed Al-Thani1, Moutaz Derbala3, Saad AlKaabi3, Yousef Khader4, Malak A Shaheen5
1Ministry of Public Health, Doha, Qatar, 2The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria, Geneva, Switzerland, 3Hamad Medical Corporation, Doha, Qatar, 4Jordan University of Science and Technology, Jordan, 5Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt
&Corresponding author
Sayed Himatt, Public Health Department, Ministry of Public Health-Doha, Qatar
Hepatitis C virus (HCV) treatment is available free of charge for all patients in Qatar. Therefore, it is critical to identify approaches that will lead to a diagnosis of chronic HCV infection earlier in the course of disease, place and retain them on treatment. These are the elements of the cascade of care framework of the global strategy to eliminate HCV. There is a need to tailor HCV screening and treatment policies to a country-specific epidemiological context to reduce HCV burden. Robust surveillance systems and data are needed to inform these policies. In this teaching case study, the trainees will learn how to explore surveillance data and measure performance in screening, diagnosing, treating and retaining HCV cases using a cascade of care framework. They will learn how to plan and design interventions to eliminate HCV. This case study is designed for the training of basic level field epidemiology trainees or any other health care workers working in public health-related fields. It can be administered in 2-3 hours. Used as adjunct training material, the case study provides the trainees with competencies in analyzing HCV data using the cascade of care framework.
General instructions: this case study should be used as adjunct training material for novice epidemiology trainees to reinforce the concepts taught in prior lectures. The case study is ideally taught by a facilitator in groups of about 20 participants. Participants are to take turns reading the case study, usually a paragraph per student. The facilitator guides the discussion on possible responses to questions. The facilitator may make use of flip charts to illustrate certain points. Additional instructor’s notes for facilitation are coupled with each question in the instructor’s guide to aid facilitation.
Audience: this case study was developed for novice field epidemiology students. These participants are commonly health care workers working in the county departments of health whose background may be as medical doctors, nurses, environmental health officers or laboratory scientists who work in public health-related fields. Most have a health science or biology background.
Prerequisites: before using this case study, participants should have received references on hepatitis C global plans and World Health Organization (WHO) HCV screening and treatment guidelines.
Materials needed: flash drive, flip charts, markers, computers with MS Excel
Level of training and associated public health activity: Novice – Disease control data analysis and strategy formulation.
Time required: 2-3 hours
Language: English
- Download the case study student guide
- Request the case study facilitator guide
The authors declare no competing interests.
Authors would like to acknowledge The Eastern Mediterranean Public Health Network (EMPHNET) for their technical support. We wish to acknowledge residents of the field epidemiology and laboratory training program who conducted the outbreak investigation on which this case study is based.
- Ministry of Public Health. Qatar Viral Hepatitis Strategic Framework 2018 -2022 (Unpublished). Doha, Qatar: Ministry of Public Health; 2018.
- World Health Organization. Hepatitis C. World Health Organization. Accessed on 3 Oct 2018.
- World Health Organization. Global Hepatitis Report 2017. 2017. Accessed on 3 Oct 2018.
- The Lancet. Eliminating viral hepatitis: time to match visions with action. Lancet. 2017 Nov 11;390(10108):2121. PubMed | Google Scholar
- Derbala M, Farag EA, Al-Romaihi HE, AlKaabi S, Elsayed E, Himatt S. Qatar plan for HCV Control 2020: From theory to reality HCV Management Project. World Hepatitis Summit, Brazil; 2017. p1. Accessed on 3 Oct 2018.
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