Reply to ‘Assessing the hepatitis C epidemiology in Switzerland: It’s not that trivial’

Abstract

We thank Sarah Blach et al. 1 for bringing attention to our update paper on the prevalence of HCV infections in Switzerland. 2 Blach et al. aim to challenge our estimate of 5900-9200 persons living in Switzerland with chronic hepatitis C in 2020 (0.1% viraemic prevalence). Their main argument against our new estimates is the unfounded allegation that we did not handle the large number of publications we reviewed for this update according to scientific standards (implying that this slipped the reviewers and editors as well). We will counter their criticism point by point in the following.However, we would also like to mention that, in contrast, we have received positive feedback from other scientists in the field. The Principal Expert on Hepatitis of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), Dr Erika Duffell, wrote to us, 'The Data sharing not applicable to this article as no datasets were generated or analysed during the current study.

Response to “Reply to ‘Assessing the hepatitis C epidemiology in Switzerland: It’s not that trivial’”

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Dear Editors,Thank you for the opportunity to respond to Barbara Bertisch et al 1,2 Debate is the foundation of good science, and we are grateful for the opportunity to counter some of the comments made.In their letter, Bertisch et al 2 disputed our comments 3 ques-

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