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Urgent call from experts: Declare hepatitis C a public health emergency
Urgent call from experts: Declare hepatitis C a public health emergency
The Philippines, along with other high-burden countries, urged to step up the fight against viral hepatitis
HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam --- Experts on Thursday, June 20, called on governments of countries with high prevalence of Hepatitis C to declare it a public emergency to meet the goals set by international bodies to eliminate viral hepatitis by 2030.
“At the current rate that countries are going, most countries in the Asia Pacific will not meet the target of 2030,” said Dr. Saeed Hamid, Professor, and Chair of the Department of Medicine at Aga Khan University in Pakistan, during the Diagnostics Media and Policy Forum as part of the APAC-IRIDS 2024. “We need to declare an emergency in all of these high-burden countries,” he added.
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https://mb.com.ph/2024/6/19/apac-irids-2024-experts-tackle-infectious-disease-diagnostic-challenges
In 2016, the World Health Assembly unanimously adopted the resolution that viral hepatitis should be eliminated by 2030.
The World Health Organization (WHO), in the same year, also published the Global Health Sector Strategy on viral hepatitis to reach this goal, defining elimination as a 90 percent reduction in incidence and a 65 percent reduction in mortality for hepatitis B and C from 2015 to 2030.
During the forum, APAC Liver Alliance Founder and Director Dr. Roberta Sarno and Coalition for Global Hepatitis Elimination Director Dr. John Ward also discussed global trends in hepatitis, the barriers to addressing the disease, and what interventions governments can implement to eliminate hepatitis by 2030.
Hepatitis C as a public emergency
In an interview on the sidelines, Hamid told the Manila Bulletin that tools to eliminate Hepatitis C are available and do not cost too much.
“If we do this on an emergency footing, we can get rid of this within two to three years,” Hamid said, noting that treatment and diagnosis are “very simple.”
By declaring Hepatitis C a public health emergency, Hamid said that governments can address the problem in a “concentrated manner” and get rid of Hepatitis C as “quickly as we want to.”
When Hepatitis C is declared a public health emergency, Hamid said that countries with high prevalence can even meet the target earlier than what was set by the WHO. “I'm talking particularly about health systems that have universal health coverage,” he explained.
“It is important for us to concentrate on specific diseases, and if you can get rid of the specifics, we are at least rid of one big major health problem,” Hamid said.
Hamid underscored the urgent need to eliminate Hepatitis C to avoid the immediate effects, such as a “high rate of deaths” --- mainly due to liver cancer.
“There are many modeling studies that now show that if we tackle this as an emergency, within three years, this effort becomes cost-effective for people, for governments, and within five to seven years, it becomes cost-saving because you save these people from disability and death,” Hamid explained.
If these people are saved and become the country’s workforce, Hamid said that they will become “economic fuel because they are fully healthy and they live a long life.”
Hamid noted that there are many models to suggest that “this is an investment which pays off very, very quickly.”
Aside from the Philippines, Hamid said that countries with high prevalence such as Pakistan, Bangladesh, India, Mongolia, and others should declare Hepatitis C a public health emergency.
Ward, for his part, agreed with Hamid. “I think you have a fully preventable cause of large numbers of deaths, and you have the tests and treatments to make a difference, and you really do need an immediate response to that,” he said.
“I also agree that countries respond to emergencies best, and in public health, calling this an emergency would capture the attention that it deserves,” he added.
As of 2022, 304 million people are living with chronic Hepatitis B or C virus infection.
Data also showed that of the 254 million people living with Hepatitis B, 86 percent were unaware of their infection and 97 percent had not been treated. Meanwhile, of the 50 million persons living with Hepatitis C, 63 percent were not aware of their infection and 80 percent had not been treated.
According to the Department of Health (DOH), the main types of viral hepatitis prevalent in the Philippines are Hepatitis B and Hepatitis C.
Despite viral hepatitis being highly preventable and treatable, DOH noted that one out of 10 Filipinos (around 10 million nationwide) are affected by chronic Hepatitis B while six out of 1,000 Filipinos are affected by Hepatitis C.
Data obtained by the Manila Bulletin from the DOH also showed that in 2020, liver diseases accounted for 27.3 cases per 1,000 deaths, of which five percent were from viral hepatitis. As such, 1 out of 20 liver-related deaths in the Philippines are due to viral hepatitis.
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