Four hundred million people around the world are infected with Hepatitis B and C, the World Health Organisation (WHO), has said ahead of World Hepatitis Day, marked annually on 28 July.
To this end, the UN health agency has encouraged people to get tested and demand treatment.
“The world has ignored Hepatitis at its peril,” Dr Margaret Chan, Director General of WHO, said. “It is time to mobilise a global response to hepatitis on the scale similar to that generated to fight other communicable diseases like HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis,” he added.
The number of people with Hepatitis B and C is more than 10 times the number of people infected with HIV, the UN has said.
According to Dr Gottfried Hirnschall, WHO’s Director of the HIV Department and Global Hepatitis Programme, “We need to act now to stop people from dying needlessly from hepatitis.”
Hepatitis B and C are transmitted through contaminated blood, as well as through contaminated needles and syringes in healthcare settings and among people who inject drugs. The viruses can also be transmitted through unprotected sex and from an infected mother to her newborn child.
There is a vaccine and treatment for Hepatitis B, but not for Hepatitis C.
Source: Ghana/AccraFM.com
