The Albury Community Health hepatitis C nurse previously relayed “horror stories” of side-effects to people starting 48 weeks of medication for the virus.

“The old treatments would impact heavily on their mental health, they’d develop skin problems, problems with their blood – it was quite dramatic,” he said.

“I can’t think of an example where a treatment has changed so dramatically for the positive in one fell swoop.”

Mr Bartlett said about 140 people had been treated with the new medication on the Border – but there was still a group who were missed.

“There’s still people who think, I won’t go anywhere near hepatitis C treatment because it’s horrible … it’s as good as we say it is,” he said.

“One of the target audiences we’ll be thinking about now is the injecting drug population locally.

“GPs can treat people now and I’m happy to engage with GPs to assist them with that.”

Mr Bartlett said researchers were now talking about the end of hepatitis C in Australia, with even more therapies coming that could treat all six types of the virus.

“It’s on the horizon, so the thinking is if someone comes in, they do a quick blood test and if they have hepatitis C they can take those,” he said.

“We’ve had this quantum shift as of March and it’s moving even faster now.”

More Australians will be cured of hepatitis C this year than in the past two decades combined, according to research released this week.

UNSW Kirby Institute associate professor Jason Grebely said 1 per cent of people had been cured before 2016 but access to new drugs between March and July would see that figure dramatically increase.

“I just came back from an international hepatitis C meeting in Paris, and Australia is truly a global leader,” he said.

“It’s the only country that has no restrictions on use criteria based on disease stage or drug and alcohol use, and GPs are able to prescribe these new therapies.”

The government’s $1 billion investment has made it possible for patients to access drugs at the value of up to $66,000 for less than $20.

Health Minister Sussan Ley hoped the cures would lead to the end of hepatitis C in Australia.

“The figures we saw this week were really encouraging; the treatments are working the way we had expected,” she said.

“It also mirrors some of the feedback my office has been receiving directly, with quite a few patients taking the trouble to contact us to let us know this is really working.”

Dr Grebely said health professionals shouldn’t get complacent – the rate of hepatitis C notification in the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population increased by 43 per cent in the past five years.

“That’s four times greater than the non-Indigenous population,” he said. “It’s driven by increased reporting of syringe sharing among Aboriginal people, so we really need to continue with health promotion.”

Dr Grebely said community services like Gateway Health, Albury Community Health and the Albury Wodonga Aboriginal Health Service would be the key to eliminating the virus.

“We have a lot of highly motivated patients who were awaiting these new therapies for several years,” he said.

“The major struggle over the next five to 10 years is going to be engaging more marginalised populations, such as people who inject drugs, people in prisons, Australian and Torres Strait Islander people,” he said. “We need to continue funding community-based organisations, because it’s the people with the lived experience who can help others.”