hepatitis c
– Photo: istock
Expansion
The World Health Organization (WHO) has warned that the threat of hepatitis B and C is increasing and it is taking 3,500 lives every day worldwide. Before World Hepatitis Day on Sunday, WHO said, the time has come to fight against it. Its theme has also been kept as ‘Time for action’.
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WHO on Saturday asked countries in South East Asia to urgently increase efforts to provide universal access to prevention, vaccination, diagnosis and treatment of viral hepatitis B and C. According to the organization, despite being preventable and treatable, these chronic infections are increasingly causing deaths from serious diseases including liver cancer, cirrhosis. Currently, liver cancer is the fourth largest cause of cancer deaths in South East Asia. It is also the second most common cause of cancer deaths in men. At the same time, about 75 percent of liver cirrhosis (permanent damage to the liver) is caused by hepatitis B and C infection. In this region, there will be 7.05 crore people suffering from viral hepatitis B and C by 2022.
Early diagnosis and treatment can prevent
According to Saima Wazed, WHO Regional Director for South-East Asia, we have the knowledge and tools to prevent, diagnose and treat viral hepatitis. We need to accelerate efforts to provide equal services to communities at the primary health care level. Early diagnosis and treatment can prevent hepatitis B from causing cirrhosis and cancer.
More than 30 crore victims
There are 254 million people suffering from hepatitis B and 50 million people suffering from hepatitis C worldwide. In the year 2022, about 1.3 million people lost their lives due to viral hepatitis. This is equal to the deaths due to tuberculosis. Hepatitis and tuberculosis were the leading causes of death among communicable diseases in the year 2022 after COVID-19. Only 2.8 percent of patients suffering from hepatitis B were diagnosed with the disease in 2022 and 3.5 percent of them got treatment.