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Writes Marlvin Ngiza
World Health Organisation (WHO) has bemoaned poor liver health awareness campaigns, and poor levels of treatment and care for people with hepatitis in the world while calling for urgent action by countries to suppress the silent infection that has been claiming more than a million lives each year globally.
This comes as the world commemorates World Hepatitis Day, which is observed annually on July 28 with this year’s theme being “One life, one liver”.
To mark this year’s observances, WHO has stressed the need for countries to enhance simplified primary care services through accelerating hepatitis testing and treatment, with the view that if the current hepatitis trajectory persists, more people will be killed as compared to those killed by malaria, tuberculosis, and HIV/AIDS altogether by 2040.
“The viral hepatitis still kills over a million people every year. Combined, hepatitis B and hepatitis C cause 1.1 million deaths and 3 million new infections every year, while 350 million people are living with a chronic viral hepatitis infection, 3,000 people die from hepatitis every day. That’s one hepatitis death every thirty seconds and over 8,000 new hepatitis B and C infections occur each day. That’s over 5 infections every minute.
“If the current trajectory continues, viral hepatitis will kill more people annually than malaria, tuberculosis, and HIV/AIDS combined by 2040. Globally, there’s a huge number of undiagnosed and untreated people living with hepatitis. This must change. Hepatitis infection is silent and liver health awareness is low. Most symptoms only appear once the disease is advanced, resulting in a huge volume of undiagnosed people living with hepatitis. Even when hepatitis is diagnosed, the number of people who go on to receive treatment is incredibly low.
“Offering easy-to-navigate services at local health facilities is key to successfully ending hepatitis. To eliminate hepatitis and achieve the WHO’s ambitious targets by 2030, simplified primary care services for viral hepatitis should ensure that: all pregnant women living with chronic hepatitis B have access to treatment and their infants have access to hepatitis B birth vaccines to prevent infection,” said WHO
WHO further called upon countries to speed up the vaccination of children at birth, screening of all donated blood, and for people to know their hepatitis status towards achieving WHO’s target by 2030.
‘As well as knowing our hepatitis status and seeking treatment, reducing alcohol, achieving a healthy weight, treating hypertension, and managing diabetes is key to a healthy liver.
“Hepatitis C can be prevented by adequately screening all donated blood, ensuring safe injection practices in health care settings, at home and especially among people who inject drugs. Hepatitis B can be prevented through vaccination and effectively managed via treatment. Now’s the time to prioritize testing and treatment to realize a hepatitis-free world and meet our 2030 targets. The reduction of hepatitis B infections in children by effective vaccination practice is one of the few Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) health targets that’s on track. It’s also the only hepatitis target on track. However, there are still too few countries in Africa that have access to hepatitis B ‘timely birth dose vaccine’, which is given in the first 24 hours after birth. Giving more hepatitis B vaccines at birth is urgently needed to meet the SDG target of preventing mother-to-child transmission, ” added WHO
According to Statistics provided by WHO, only 10% of people with chronic hepatitis B are diagnosed, only 22% of those receive treatment – that’s just 2% of the total global health burden. Only 21% of people with hepatitis C are diagnosed and 62% of those diagnosed receive treatment to cure them – just 13% of the total global health burden.
