Hepatitis
Malaysia gets serious about global effort to eradicate hepatitis
Authorities committed to lengthy and expensive battle to find patients and cure infections
Five years after the World Health Organization ( WHO ) announced its goal to eliminate hepatitis worldwide by 2030 , many countries are on the road to making this a reality .
Hepatitis is an inflammation of the liver tissue most commonly caused by a viral infection . It presents a significant global public health challenge , with over 354 million people living with chronic hepatitis and more than one million deaths annually , according to the WHO .
The virus has five main strains , with types � and C , in particular , leading to chronic disease in hundreds of millions of people . Together , they are the most common cause of liver cirrhosis , liver cancer , and viral hepatitis-related deaths .
Viral hepatitis is the seventh leading cause of mortality worldwide and is the only communicable disease where mortality is increasing . For most patients , testing and treatment remain beyond reach .
According to Lindsey Hiebert , associate director of the Coalition for �lobal Hepatitis Elimination , a programme of the Task Force for �lobal Health , an American N�O that focuses on eliminating disease and protecting populations , now is a “ very exciting time to be working in hepatitis elimination ,” with barriers continuing to fall , especially around access to treatment and its cost .
�In the past five years , the world has made a lot of progress . For example , since the WHO announced its target , about 10 percent of people living with hepatitis C virus have been treated to date , but there ’ s still a long way to go ,” she told Global Health Asia-Pacific�
This is echoed by the WHO , who said in a statement : “ While progress has been made in the hepatitis response , there is still a long way to go .
“ In far too many countries , priority interventions remain inaccessible to the populations most severely affected or at higher risk . The COVID-19 pandemic
42 AUGUST 2021 GlobalHealthAndTravel . com