{"id":76931,"date":"2016-08-01T12:00:06","date_gmt":"2016-08-01T11:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=76931"},"modified":"2016-07-28T16:43:01","modified_gmt":"2016-07-28T15:43:01","slug":"400-million-people-live-with-hepatitis-but-they-do-not-know","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2016\/08\/400-million-people-live-with-hepatitis-but-they-do-not-know\/","title":{"rendered":"400 Million People Live with Hepatitis but They Do Not Know"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Peru<\/a>

Peru is carrying out a strategy to eliminate mother-to-child-transmission of hepatitis B. The most important preventative intervention is the universal vaccination, which can prevent infection in 95 per cent of cases. Photo credit: PAHO<\/p><\/div>\n

26 Jul 2016<\/em> – With some 400 million people around the world infected with hepatitis B or C, mostly without being aware, the United Nations top health agency encourages countries to boost testing and access to services and medicines for people in need to combat the \u2018ignored perils\u2019 of this disease.<\/p>\n

A staggering per cent of people infected with hepatitis<\/a> B or C do not know they are infected, often living without symptoms for many years, the World Health Organisation (WHO) warns<\/a>. And over 90% of people with hepatitis C can be completely cured within 3\u20136 months.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe world has ignored hepatitis at its peril,\u201d said<\/a> Dr. Margaret Chan, WHO\u2019s director general, ahead of the World Hepatitis Day, which is observed annually on 28 July.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt 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,\u201d she said<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The number grows by 6 to 10 million a year, WHO reported, while announcing plans to release new testing guidelines for both hepatitis B and C.<\/p>\n

With this, among other actions, the Geneva-based World Health Organisation attempts \u201cto encourage testing and reach the 95 per cent of people who are not aware they are infected with the disease.\u201d<\/p>\n

The theme of this year\u2019s World Hepatitis Day is Know Hepatitis; Act Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"What<\/a>

What is Hepatitis? Credit: WHO<\/p><\/div>\n

Together with its partner, Social Entrepreneurship for Sexual Health, WHO on July 25 said<\/a> it recently launched #HepTestContest, a global contest to show how the testing guidelines could translate into real action on the ground.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe needed examples of innovations and best practices to help guide and inspire others,\u201d said Philippa Easterbrook from the WHO Global Hepatitis Programme, who co-led the project.<\/p>\n

The contest received 64 contributions from 27 countries, WHO said<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Five finalists were selected by a panel of experts including representatives from WHO, the World Hepatitis Alliance and M\u00e9decins sans Fronti\u00e8res, who reviewed the testing models for innovation, effectiveness, and plans for sustainability.<\/p>\n

In addition to national testing campaigns, approaches included testing in prisons, testing in the workplace and hospital emergency rooms, integrated HIV-hepatitis testing, as well as the use of internet, social media, and electronic medical records to flag higher-risk patients for testing in primary care.<\/p>\n

\"Are<\/a>

Are you at risk? Credit: WHO<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cFrom prisons in Australia, use of an internet-based risk self-assessment tool in the Netherlands, community testing camps for drug users in India, to testing in primary care in Mongolia we learned some great lessons about how to build awareness of this hidden disease, improve testing rates and link those infected to treatment and care,\u201d Philippa Easterbrook added.<\/p>\n

An important feature of the approach was the strong community involvement and support as well as strategic partnerships to leverage reductions in the price of treatments, WHO said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBringing together pharmaceutical companies, government, research organisations and communities to help negotiate price reductions make hepatitis treatments more affordable,\u201d said Easterbrook.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe contest demonstrated a range of possibilities. It showed that if we can develop acceptable testing approaches to suit different contexts and cultures, then we can increase effective hepatitis testing in more countries and communities,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

In May of this year, the World Health Assembly \u2013 WHO\u2019s decision-making body \u2013 called for treating eight million people for hepatitis B or C by 2020, to reduce new viral hepatitis infections by 90 per cent, and to decrease the number of deaths by 65 per cent in 2030, as compared with 2016. These targets are part of the first ever Global Health Sector Strategy on viral hepatitis.<\/p>\n

____________________________________<\/p>\n

Baher Kamal, Egyptian-born, Spanish national secular journalist. He is founder and publisher of\u00a0<\/em>Human Wrongs Watch<\/a>. Kamal is a pro-peace, non-violence, human rights, harmonious coexistence defender among human beings and with Nature, with more than 43 years of professional experience. With these issues in sight, he covered practically all professional posts, from correspondent to chief editor of dailies and international news agencies.<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 ipsnews.net<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

26 Jul 2016 – With some 400 million people around the world infected with hepatitis B or C, mostly without being aware, the United Nations top health agency encourages countries to boost testing and access to services and medicines for people in need to combat the \u2018ignored perils\u2019 of this disease.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-76931","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76931","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76931"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76931\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}