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Grim numbers on World Hepatitis Day
A staggering number of Indonesians — as many as 30 million people — are infected by hepatitis, said the government and researchers at events for the country’s first observance of Hepatitis Day on Wednesday
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staggering number of Indonesians — as many as 30 million people — are infected by hepatitis, said the government and researchers at events for the country’s first observance of Hepatitis Day on Wednesday.
“Even though we have carried out many programs, hepatitis remains a big problem,” Health Minister Endang Rahayu Sedyaningsih said at a ceremony in Yogyakarta, as quoted by an official ministry release.
The number of people with the hepatitis B and C virus in Indonesia may be more than 20 million, said Ali Sulaiman from the University of Indonesia’s Hepatology Division. A press release issued by Ministry of Health said it estimated that an even larger number of Indonesians were suffering from the diseases — more than 30 million.
“The hepatitis virus in general and hepatitis B and C virus spe-
cifically have been a major health problem in Indonesia for a long time,” Ali said.
In May, the World Health Assembly (WHA) adopted a resolution on viral hepatitis to be includ-
ed in the World Health Organization’s (WHO) priority agenda. Indonesia was one of the parties that pushed for the resolution, along with Brazil.
The move represents a call “for the WHO to develop a comprehensive approach to the prevention and control” of viral hepatitis, which includes hepatitis A, B, C, D and E, according to the organization’s website.
The WHO changed the date of World Hepatitis Day from May 19 to July 28, which is the birth date of Baruch Blumberg, who discovered hepatitis B in 1965.
Ali said that at least 2 billion people globally have now or had once been infected by the hepatitis virus. More than 400 million people are currently infected and 170 million people have hepatitis C, he added.
Endang quoted the 2007 Basic Health Research Data report, which said that the prevalence of clinical hepatitis in Indonesia was 0.6 percent. Liver diseases — including chronic hepatitis — were the second largest fatal transmittable disease in the country, he added.
At worst, hepatitis B or C can develop into cirrhosis, which is the shrinking and hardening of the liver, or liver cancer.
The hepatitis B virus is transmitted through blood and bodily fluids. A mother with hepatitis B can transmit the disease to her child during pregnancy or childbirth. Researchers agree that the hepatitis C virus can be transmitted by blood-to-blood contact.
The virus can also be transmitted through unprotected sex, including oral sex, blood transfusions and sharing needles. It is more easily transmitted than the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).
Not all infected individuals will carry the virus throughout their lives. The scenario after infection — whether hepatitis will develop into a serious disease — depends on a person’s immune system.
Hepatitis cannot be transmitted through sharing food or drink or by breast-feeding.
Internist Unggul Budihusodo said that most people afflicted with hepatitis B or C did not know that they had the disease.
“It is typically discovered when people are rejected as blood donors or when they go for medical examinations,” he said.
