UKIP fully support this motion and efforts to eradicate hepatitis C by 2030. As others have highlighted, hepatitis C is a disease that affects about 2 per cent of the world’s population and is responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths each year. It is therefore unsurprising that the World Health Organization wants to eliminate the disease.

The UK Government has pledged its support for the World Health Organization’s eradication goals last year and I would urge the Welsh Government to follow this example. The Welsh NHS has made significant strides in treating people with hepatitis C in recent years. Nearly 900 patients were treated last year in an attempt to clear the backlog of patients awaiting treatment. However, with up to 7,000 people in Wales unknowingly infected with the hepatitis C virus, much, much more must be done to identify and treat people living with the disease.

Wales urgently needs a hepatitis C reduction strategic action plan to ensure that local health boards prioritise elimination of the disease within the Welsh liver disease delivery plan. The strategic action plan should, as an absolute minimum, implement and build upon the recommendations contained within the Hepatitis C Trust’s 2016 report on hepatitis C in Wales. In preparing that report, the Hepatitis C Trust found that hepatitis C sufferers in Wales are disproportionately drawn from some of the most disadvantaged and marginalised groups in society, and three quarters of people with the virus come from the lowest two socioeconomic quintiles. They also found that their disadvantage was compounded by the stigma of hepatitis C. The Hepatitis C Trust found that those who were diagnosed in the 1980s were told by health professionals not to tell anyone else of their diagnosis, and many commented on the years of internalised guilt and shame that resulted. Thankfully, our NHS has moved on from that shameful period. However, the stigma perpetuates. We still have far too many people with hepatitis C who report the sense of guilt and shame they feel or how, in some way, they feel dirty. Unfortunately, this often results in those individuals disengaging with care entirely, despite being aware of their diagnosis—a decision that greatly increases the risk of liver cirrhosis or cancer.

In order to tackle this pervading stigma and the incredible harm it does, the Hepatitis C Trust report recommends action be taken to normalise the disease by undertaking positive media campaigns to highlight the cross-section of people living with the virus. I hope that the Cabinet Secretary will work with his counterparts in the rest of the UK and the Hepatitis C Trust to deliver such a campaign. However, if we are to fully eradicate the stigma, we have to ensure that those living with the virus have positive experiences when dealing with all health professionals. People with hepatitis C have reported always being booked in for the last dental appointment of the day, apparently to allow time for dental practices to undertake additional infection control practices. Such practices left people feeling as though they posed a danger to others and were in some way distinct from the rest of the population. This has to stop. Additional infection control measures should be unnecessary—dental practices should have sufficient infection control measures in place with every patient to prevent transmission of every blood-borne virus.

We have to educate not just the public, but also our health professionals, about hepatitis C. I urge the Welsh Government to adopt the Hepatitis C Trust’s recommendations and I urge Members to support the motion. Together, we can eradicate this terrible disease. Diolch yn fawr, Llywydd.