At the World Hepatitis Summit 2017 in Brazil, World Health Organisation (WHO) has said that countries need to provide a full range of hepatitis prevention services. This they say has led to rising rates of new infections including 1.75 million new hepatitis C cases every year.
In a statement released by WHO, issues were raised on prevention gaps and countries were urged to ensure that services are accessible to different population groups particularly those at greater risk.
Largely due to increases in the uptake of hepatitis B vaccine, hepatitis B infection rates in children under 5 fell to 1.3% in 2015, from 4.7% in the pre-vaccine era.
However, the delivery of other prevention services, such as birth-dose vaccination for hepatitis B, harm reduction services for people who inject drugs, and infection control in many health services, remains low.
WHO says there are diagnosis challenges, and to achieve a rapid scale-up of treatment, countries need urgently to increase uptake of testing and diagnosis for hepatitis B and C.
As of 2015, an estimated 1 in 10 people living with hepatitis B, and 1 in 5 people living with hepatitis C, were aware of their infection. Countries need to improve policies, and programs to increase awareness and subsequent diagnosis.
“We cannot meet the ambitious hepatitis elimination targets without innovation in prevention interventions and approaches, and implementing them to scale,” said Dr Ren Minghui Assistant Director-General for Communicable Diseases, WHO.
“The great successes of hepatitis B vaccination programs in many countries need to be replicated and sustained globally in the context of moving forward to universal health coverage.”
WHO reports increasing global momentum in the response to viral hepatitis. A record 3 million people were able to obtain treatment for hepatitis C over the past two years, and 2.8 million more people embarked on lifelong treatment for hepatitis B in 2016.
“We have seen a nearly 5-fold increase in the number of countries developing national plans to eliminate life-threatening viral hepatitis over the last 5 years,” says Dr Gottfried Hirnschall, Director of WHO’s Department of HIV and Global Hepatitis Program. “These results bring hope that the elimination of hepatitis can and will become a reality.”
The Summit aims to encourage more countries to take decisive action to tackle hepatitis, which still causes more than 1.3 million deaths every year and affects more than 325 million people.
According to the global policy report on the prevention and control of viral hepatitis, Sierra Leone does not have any written national strategy or plan that focuses exclusively or primarily on the prevention and control of viral hepatitis. There is no designated government unit/department responsible solely for coordinating and/or carrying out viral hepatitis-related activities.
It is not known how many people work full-time on hepatitis related activities in all government agencies/ bodies. The government has a viral hepatitis prevention and control programme that includes activities targeting children under the age of one year.
By Zainab Joaque
Thursday November 02, 2017.
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