Hepatitis services must be scaled up, included in essential health packages: WHO official
Hepatitis testing and treatment
services must be scaled up and decentralised to primary care, and services related to the infection should be embedded within essential health packages, Dr Catharina Boehme, Officer-in-Charge of WHO South-East Asia, said on Monday.
Speaking on
World Hepatitis Day
, which is observed on July 28 every year, Boehme said hepatitis must prioritise responses with maternal and child health, among others, and work towards reducing the toll of liver cancer due to
hepatitis B
and
hepatitis C
.
"We have the tools to prevent these infections: safe and effective hepatitis B vaccines, affordable diagnostics, highly effective hepatitis B medicines, and the game-changing hepatitis C direct-acting antiviral (DAA) medicines that cure the infection," she said.
"However, problems persist with the complexity and fragmentation in service delivery, lack of services at primary healthcare clinics, poor uptake of services, out-of-pocket expenses, limited awareness, and stigma," Boehme added.
World Hepatitis Day raises awareness of viral hepatitis, an inflammation of the liver that causes severe liver disease and liver cancer. It is observed on the birthday of Nobel Prize-winning scientist Dr Baruch Blumberg, who discovered the hepatitis B virus (HBV) and developed a diagnostic test and vaccine for the virus.
This year, the theme 'Hepatitis: Let's Break It Down' calls for urgent action to dismantle the financial, social and systemic barriers, including the stigma attached to the infection, that stand in the way of hepatitis elimination and
liver cancer prevention
.
Boehme said, "In our WHO South-East Asia region, viral hepatitis continues to cause needless suffering, silently leading to liver disease, cancer, and hundreds of thousands of preventable deaths each year."
Across the region, an estimated 61 million people live with hepatitis B, and 9 million with hepatitis C.
"Our region bears one of the highest burdens of chronic viral hepatitis globally, yet most people living with the disease remain undiagnosed and untreated," she said.
She said every year, over 2,60,000 lives are lost, many due to preventable complications of hepatitis and one of the most devastating outcomes is liver cancer, because of untreated hepatitis B and C infections.
"With limited access to early diagnosis and treatment, most liver cancer cases in our region are detected late, when curative options are no longer viable," Boehme said.
She said hepatitis testing and treatment services must be "scaled up, decentralised to primary care", and guidelines simplified, to reduce the toll of liver cancer due to hepatitis B and C.
"We must embed
hepatitis services
within essential health packages, leverage primary health care platforms, and align responses with maternal and child health, HIV, STIs, TB, non-communicable diseases, blood safety, infection prevention and control, occupational health and universal health coverage efforts.
"We have to prioritise hepatitis B birth-dose and completion of the vaccination schedule, integrated safe motherhood services, harm reduction services, and community-based outreach to close the equity gap," she said.
Boehme said progress was possible and countries across our region are innovating, including adopting simplified testing and treatment service models, integrating hepatitis as part of essential services and under social health insurance coverage.
"These efforts need to be scaled and sustained with strong political will and investment. Together, let's break it down by removing the complexity, ending the silence, and delivering on our promise to eliminate hepatitis by 2030," she said.
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