‘Every day more than 3,500 people die from hepatitis viruses and the global toll is increasing’, warned the World Health Organization.
‘Latest data from 187 countries highlighted that the number of deaths from viral hepatitis increased to 1.3 million in 2022 from 1.1 million in 2019’, as per a WHO report released to coincide with the World Hepatitis Summit in Portugal this week.
Meg Doherty, head of the WHO’s global HIV, hepatitis and sexually-transmitted infection programmes said, ‘These are alarming trends’.
The report further said that there are 3,500 deaths per day worldwide from hepatitis infections 83 % from hepatitis B, 17 % from hepatitis C.
There are effective generic drugs which can treat these viruses. ‘Yet only 3 % of those with chronic hep B received antiviral treatment by the end of 2022’, said the report.
For hep C, just 20 % or 12.5 million people had been treated. Doherty said, ‘These results fall well below the global targets to treat 80 % of all people living with chronic hep B and C by 2030’.
WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus emphasised that the report paints a troubling picture. He said in a statement, ‘Despite progress globally in preventing hepatitis infections, deaths are rising because far too few people with hepatitis are being diagnosed and treated’.
The report said, ‘Africa accounts for 63 % of new hep B infections, yet less than one in five babies on the continent are vaccinated at birth’.
Two-thirds of all hepatitis cases are in Bangladesh, China, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines, Russia and Vietnam, according to the report.
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