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Schiff thinks these new medications will get more people to go for treatment, because there are fewer side effects and the treatment time is shorter.

In the United States, about 4 million people have HCV, Schiff said. "Most of those people haven't been diagnosed. Of the 1 million who have been diagnosed, maybe 400,000 to 500,000 have been treated, and about 50 percent have been cured," he said.

"If you have an all-oral, highly efficacious regimen with relatively few side effects, then these people who haven't been diagnosed but know they have risk factors are going to come forward, because when they are diagnosed, there is going to be treatment that has a high percentage of cure," Schiff said.

Around the world, 180 million people have HCV. HCV is the leading cause of cirrhosis and liver cancer, and the most common reason for liver transplantation in the United States. HCV is spread mostly by sharing needles.

More information

For more on hepatitis C, visit the U.S. National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases.

SOURCES: John G. McHutchison, M.D., Duke University Medical Center, Durham, N.C.; Jean-Michel Pawlotsky, M.D., Ph.D., Henri Mondor Hospital, University of Paris, France; Eugene Schiff, M.D., chief, division of hepatology, University of Miami School of Medicine; April 30, 2009, New England Journal of Medicine