“Hepatitis can’t wait,” the World Hepatitis Alliance stressed in the run-up to World Hepatitis Day, celebrated on Thursday 28 July. Every 30 seconds someone dies from the effects of a hepatitis infection, the Alliance said.
The World Health Organization (WHO) aims to eliminate the five forms of hepatitis – A, B, C, D and E – by 2030.
The Belgian HCV coalition, an association of doctors and healthcare experts, warned on Wednesday that stronger measures were needed to achieve this.
Hepatitis, also known as HCV, is an inflammation of the liver, caused mainly by a viral infection. Around the world, 350 million people are living with viral hepatitis, the World Hepatitis Alliance estimates. Nine out of ten people with hepatitis do not know they are infected.
Unlike hepatitis A and hepatitis B, there is no vaccine against hepatitis C. According to public health institute Sciensano, it is the most insidious form of the viral disease.
Because HCV is blood-borne, most infections are caused by unsafe injection practices, unsafe healthcare, and unscreened blood transfusions. Drug users are at higher risk of contracting hepatitis C, which is mainly caused by sharing needles to inject drugs.
New HCV infections are usually asymptomatic. A chronic HCV infection (lasting more than six months) can lead to serious liver damage, such as cirrhosis and liver cancer.
The Belgian HCV Coalition drew attention, in particular, to detainees. Hepatitis C, it said, is seven times more common in prisons than elsewhere, whereas detainees do not have the same access to treatments as the general population.
“For several years now, we have had effective and safe treatments that allow us to cure almost all patients, so we theoretically have a unique opportunity to completely eradicate this virus in Belgium,” said the HCV coalition.
“There is no need for more resources, they just have to be used the right way,” noted Dr. Stefan Bourgeois of the Antwerp Hospital Network.
