The Punjab government has launched a special fund “Mukh Mantri Punjab Hepatitis C Relief Fund”

Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal on 18 June 2016 launched the fund titled Mukh Mantri Punjab Hepatitis C Relief Fund to provide free treatment for patients affected by Hepatitis C. 
•    With this initiative, Punjab became the first Indian state to provide free treatment to confirmed cases of Hepatitis C.
•    The fund will have initial corpus of 20 crore rupees. 
It will provide free treatment to all the residents of Punjab affected by Hepatitis C. 
•    Free treatment for Hepatitis C would be provided to the patients in the state government medical colleges at Patiala, Amritsar and Faridkot besides 22 district hospitals. 
•    Under this scheme, the patients of Hepatitis C will be registered at the 25 treating hospitals.
•    Medicines for the course of treatment will be issued after examination and testing by the medical specialists.
•    The patient has to pay only for the viral load and the genotype of the Hepatitis C Virus for which the Punjab Government has also done rate contract with Lal Path Laboratories. 
The medicines will be given free of cost.
•    With a prevalence rate as high as 3 percent, there are up to 10 lakh cases of suspected Hepatitis C in the state, of which up to 6 lakh require treatment. 
•    Until recently, the treatment consisted of injectable peg-interferon which was very expensive and unaffordable. 
•    However, through Mukh Mantri Punjab Hepatitis C Relief Fund, free treatment for Hepatitis C would be of great help for the patients.