The World Health Organization reported on Tuesday that Europe’s regional hepatitis elimination efforts face significant hurdles, falling off track for 2030 targets despite major gains in childhood vaccination and a 33% drop in hepatitis C mortality over the past decade across the continent.
Viral hepatitis remains a persistent public health challenge across Europe, where millions of people live with chronic infections without knowing it. While expanded vaccination programs and targeted interventions have driven down infection rates in several categories, public health agencies warn that critical gaps in diagnosis and treatment threaten regional goals.
WHO Data Highlights Progress in Childhood Vaccination and Declining Hepatitis C Mortality
Data from the Global Hepatitis Report 2026 released by the World Health Organization Regional Office for Europe show that expanded immunization efforts have successfully lowered the prevalence of hepatitis B among children under five in the region to an estimated 0.06 percent. That figure sits comfortably below the global elimination threshold of 0.1 percent.
Additional metrics reveal broad regional gains since 2015. New hepatitis B infections have fallen by 54 percent, while new hepatitis C cases have declined by 28 percent. Over the past decade, the total number of people living with hepatitis C dropped by 29 percent, and virus-associated deaths fell by 33 percent.
Despite these improvements, the absolute burden remains heavy. An estimated 9.7 million people in the region live with hepatitis B, while 5.6 million carry hepatitis C.
The Diagnosis and Treatment Gap Warned by Health Agencies
The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control joined the WHO in issuing warnings that the region will miss its 2030 elimination targets due to severe under-diagnosis and inadequate treatment coverage. Bruno Ciancio, Head of Unit for Directly Transmitted and Vaccine-Preventable Diseases at the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, emphasized the human cost of these missing interventions.
According to WHO figures, only 23 percent of people with hepatitis B in the European Region have received a diagnosis, and a mere 4.2 percent of those diagnosed are currently receiving treatment.
Vulnerable Communities and Structural Barriers to Care
Marginalized groups face disproportionate obstacles in accessing screening and ongoing care. Migrant populations, people experiencing homelessness, and prisoners often encounter linguistic, cultural, and structural barriers that prevent them from navigating host health systems. Projects backed by the European Union, such as MOBHOPE, attempt to bridge these gaps by deploying mobile health units to urban streets, homeless shelters, and prisons to provide on-site testing and direct referrals.
Public health experts emphasize that decentralizing care by moving testing out of specialized clinical settings and closer to affected communities is essential to closing the diagnostic divide.
Pathways Forward and Georgia’s Elimination Model
Stela Bivol, Regional Adviser for HIV, Viral Hepatitis and Sexually Transmitted Infections at WHO/Europe, stressed that the primary obstacle is no longer the absence of preventative science. The biggest gap today is no longer prevention – it is finding people with hepatitis and ensuring that they receive the care and treatment they need,
Bivol stated, warning that meeting 2030 milestones requires immediate acceleration of testing protocols.
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