Abstract
In recent years, Australia announced an ambitious plan to eliminate hepatitis C as a public health threat by 2030. In so doing, it also added direct-acting antivirals to its public Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme and took a series of steps designed to encourage people to be tested for hepatitis C and then treated. Australia is in a rare and enviable position: we have the opportunity to eliminate hepatitis C as a public health concern. But elimination does not mean eradication, and so by definition there will be many people who do not get cured. These people in the margins of successes and our public health definition are often characterized as “missing” or “invisible.” To us, they are not a mystery or a problem to solve but friends and family for whom the health system does not work and is not welcoming.
In August 2025, a plenary session at the 15th Australasian Viral hepatitis Conference in Melbourne, Australia explored these issues. The session looked at elimination from several perspectives. The session was designed to reframe the issue, to ask what does sustainable and welcoming care mean in the age of hepatitis C elimination. In the sections that follow, we include the speeches from all of those who were part of the plenary panel. The session includes a welcome from the session facilitator, and expert contributions from people with lived experience as well as those from other academic disciplines.