World Hepatitis Day gives reason to bring awareness
If today is your birthday, you might know that you share it with Dr. Baruch “Barry” Blumberg. Who? Although not a household name, Dr. Blumberg (1925-2011) discovered the hepatitis B virus in 1967 and developed the first hepatitis B vaccine two years later. This achievement earned him a Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1976.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that World Hepatitis Day, commemorated by organizations throughout the world, including the World Health Organization (WHO), is intended to bring awareness about viral hepatitis, which impacts more than 354 million people worldwide. Quite appropriately, they chose Dr. Blumberg’s birthday for the celebration.
“World Hepatitis Day creates an opportunity to educate people about the burden of these infections, CDC’s efforts to combat viral hepatitis around the world, and actions people can take to prevent these infections,” they said.
“Viral hepatitis – a group of infectious diseases known as hepatitis A (HAV), hepatitis B (HBV), hepatitis C (HCV), hepatitis D (HDV), and hepatitis E (HEV) – affects millions of people worldwide, causing both acute and chronic liver disease. Viral hepatitis causes more than one million deaths each year. While deaths from tuberculosis and HIV have been declining, deaths from hepatitis are increasing,” CDC explained.
Hepatitis A and Hepatitis B are both vaccine-preventable liver infections. The virus that causes HAV is found in the stool and blood of infected people. It’s very contagious and is spread when someone unknowingly ingests the virus, even in minute amounts, through close personal contact with an infected person or eating contaminated food or drink.
“Symptoms of HAV can last up to two months and include fatigue, nausea, stomach pain, and jaundice,” CDC said. “Most people with hepatitis A do not have long-lasting illness.”
Hepatitis B is spread through blood, semen, or other body fluids. This can occur through sexual contact, sharing needles, syringes, or other drug-injection equipment, and from mother to baby at birth. Not all newly infected people have symptoms, but those that do may experience fatigue, poor appetite, stomach pain, nausea, and jaundice.
“For many people, hepatitis B is a short-term illness. For others, it can become a long-term, chronic infection that can lead to serious, even life-threatening health issues like cirrhosis or liver cancer. The risk for infection is related to age at infection: about 90 percent of infants with hepatitis B go on to develop chronic infection, whereas only two to six percent of people who get HBV as adults become chronically infected,” CDC explained.
Treatments can cure hepatitis C, but there is no vaccine. It is spread through contact with an infected person, most often when sharing needles or other equipment used in injecting drugs. As in HBV, it can be a short or long-term chronic infection. Usually, HBV has no symptoms until advanced liver damage has occurred, so it’s crucial to get tested if you’re at high risk.
Hepatitis D, also known as “delta hepatitis,” only occurs in infected people with hepatitis B. It can cause severe symptoms and can lead to life-long liver damage and even death. “People can become infected with both hepatitis B and hepatitis D viruses at the same time (coinfection) or get hepatitis D after first being infected with the hepatitis B virus (known as superinfection),” the CDC said. And, they added that there’s no vaccine for HDV.
Finally, Hepatitis E is uncommon in the U.S. This virus is found in the stool of an infected person. Most often, the infection is acquired by drinking water contaminated by feces from infected people, but it can also be transmitted in raw or undercooked pork, venison, wild boar meat, or shellfish.
“In the past, most cases in developed countries involved people who have recently traveled to countries where hepatitis E is common,” CDC said.
The goal of the CDC and WHO is to eradicate hepatitis C by 2030. The National Institutes of Health think it’s possible “through a combination of prevention education, universal clinical and targeted community screening, effective linkage to care, and treatment with promising new direct-acting antiviral drug regimens.”
I hope that’s realistic. I’m sure Dr. Blumberg would have as well.
Kathy Hubbard is a member of the Bonner General Health Foundation Advisory Council. She can be reached at kathyleehubbard@yahoo.com.
