IFNA1 and chronic hepatitis C virus infection: Shortly after, there are several clinical studies demonstrating the superiority of combination therapy with ribavirin (RBV) on IFN-α monotherapy and in 1998 the scheme is approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for treatment of chronic viral hepatitis C. Using this combined regimen for 24 or 48 weeks resulted in an increase of 2 to 3 times the SVR rates ranging from 36% to 47% [9-11].