Hepatitis puts millions at risk of liver disease

An estimated 325 million people globally are living with chronic hepatitis B or hepatitis C virus. 1.34 million died from the liver-damaging disease because they did not have access to life-saving treatment, according to a new global hepatitis report by the World Health Organisation.

Most deaths in 2015 were due to chronic liver disease (720,000 deaths due to cirrhosis) and primary liver cancer (470,000 deaths).

Many other people do not have access to tests to diagnose the disease, and thus did not know they were infected and in turn did not seek treatment. These untreated populations are at risk of “a slow progression to chronic liver disease, cancer and death” the 2017 hepatitis report warns.

Director of WHO’s Department of HIV and the Global Hepatitis Programme Dr Gottfried Hirnschall told HealthyNation that while mortality from tuberculosis and HIV has been declining, deaths from hepatitis are on the rise

CHILDREN AT RISK

Hepatitis B virus (HBV) is transmitted through contact with blood or other body fluids. Hepatitis C virus (HCV) is spread through direct contact with infected blood. Hepatitis is 100 times more infectious than HIV. Hepatitis C is transmitted through unsafe and infected injections in healthcare facilities and through injecting drug users where syringes and needles with the virus are shared. Use of clean needles and syringes among drug users, also called harm reduction programmes, keeps the viral infection at bay.

The other preventive measure is the use of a daily tablet for 60 to 90 days to cure hepatitis C. The drug now costs about Sh20, 000 but was initially sold for Sh8.4 million, the new report states.

While there is currently no vaccine against HCV, there exists one for HBV among children that has been used since 1982. HBV is mainly transmitted in the first years of life from mother to child and is most prevalent in the Western Pacific and African regions.

In Kenya at least 10 per cent of pregnant women have the viruses and will pass them to their children during childbirth, data from the Kenya Medical Research Institute shows. Such children are at a 90 per cent risk of developing liver complications after infection.

WHO Team Leader in the Department of Immunisation, Vaccines and Biologicals Dr Ana Maria Henao Restrepo says 185 countries now use the hepatitis B vaccine in routine immunisation programmes.

She told HealthyNation: “Eighty-five percent of infants worldwide are protected with three doses of hepatitis B vaccine. Where we are lagging behind is on the first dose that is given after birth.” WHO numbers show that coverage with the initial birth vaccination is still low at 39 per cent.