The British Columbia Hepatitis Testers Cohort (BC-HTC) was set-up as collaboration between BC Centre for Disease Control, the Ministry of Health and BC Cancer Agency in 2013 to monitor hepatitis disease burden and provide answer to pressing policy questions in British Columbia.
The BC-HTC is a dynamic cohort including all individuals who were tested for hepatitis C or HIV, or diagnosed with, hepatitis B, hepatitis C, HIV or active tuberculosis since 1990. These data are linked with corresponding data on medical visits, hospitalizations, cancers, prescription drugs, and death records. Various datasets in the BC-HTC data are updated on 6 months to biannual basis.
The overall purpose of the BC-HTC is to monitor disease burden related to hepatitis and associated infections and social conditions, evaluate impact of interventions, and monitor hepatitis program progress to inform policy and programming in British Columbia and Canada.