Barre T, Marcellin F, Di Beo V, et al. - Researchers examined how the arrival of new and well-tolerated HCV treatments (direct-acting antivirals: DAA) has influenced HCV treatment uptake in French PWID compared with former treatments (pegylated interferon-based treatments: Peg-IFN). They examined how alcohol use disorder (AUD) (defined by AUD-related long-term illness status, diagnosis coding during hospitalization and/or AUD pharmacological treatment) is associated with first HCV treatment delivery by employing discrete-time Cox proportional hazards models based on exhaustive care delivery data. Participants comprised 24,831 French people who were chronically HCV-infected and received OAT at least once during 2012-2016 and were covered by the national health insurance. For Peg-IFN-based treatment (2012-2013) and DAA (2014-2016), the incidence rate of HCV treatment uptake per 100 person-years [95% confidence interval] was 6.56 [6.30-6.84] and 5.70 [5.51-5.89], respectively. The analysis suggests that among people who inject drugs in France, untreated alcohol use disorder is a major barrier to hepatitis C treatment access, this was observed despite the benefits of direct-acting antiviral treatment.