THE QUESTION is not whether
it is hepatitis B or C. Both are liver diseases that can kill. But few people
are aware of hepatitis C which has no vaccine against it and is far more
costlier to treat, according to doctors.
They say this is because of
apathy towards hepatitis C since, until recently, there had been no preventive
screening of it. In Sabah, hepatitis C infects 96,000 of the 3.2m people,
according to Dr Nerenthran Loganathan of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Kota
Kinabalu.
There are 256,000 people
with hepatitis B. Untreated, they lead to deadly scarring of the liver
(cirrhosis), liver cancer and gastrointestinal bleeding. The diseases infect
500m people all over the world and kill one million of them every year. And the
World Health Organization says they infect more people and kill them quicker
than AIDS.
Dr Nerenthran, a consultant
physician, tells Insight Sabah that the local figures “do not reflect the real
numbers”. He says there are “healthy carriers” of the viruses who are unaware
that they have the diseases.
WHO is leading a campaign
against hepatitis C as it marked World Hepatitis Day on July 28. It has become
one of its four health awareness days since 2010. The others are AIDS, malaria
and tuberculosis. About 170m people worldwide have hepatitis C, 30m of them are
in South-East Asia.
World Hepatitis Day was also
observed in Sabah. Dr Nerenthran says most government hospitals have already
begun screening people for hepatitis C.
Dr Yusof Ibrahim, Sabah’s
health director, says hepatitis B infects 1.4m people (5%) in Malaysia which
has a population of 28m. About 560,000 (2%) have hepatitis C.
Most of the infections are
caused by drug abuse through sharing of intravenous needles, tattooing and
body-piercing, acupuncture, sexual promiscuity and blood transfusion. Dr
Nerenthran says that people who had blood transfused to them before 1994 have a
high risk of contracting hepatitis C. Babies are infected by their mothers who
have the virus.
Dr Yusof says that those
with hepatitis B or C have a high risk of dying from cirrhosis or liver cancer.
But hepatitis B can be prevented by vaccination.
Dr Nerenthran says both
hepatitis B and C can be treated if they are diagnosed early and when there is
little damage to the liver. “The challenge is catching patients early and
giving them the right treatment.”
But treatment is costly.
Anti-viral drugs against hepatitis B may cost a patient about 400 ringgit
($127) a month, according to Dr Nerenthran. “And a patient may have to take the
drugs for the rest of his life,” he says. “Treatment for hepatitis C, depending
on the type of the virus, costs between 15,000 and 80,000 ringgit.” (Insight
Sabah)
No comments:
Post a Comment