World Hepatitis Day July 28 2019
15 Jul 2019
The 28th July 2019 is World Hepatitis Day. This annual event is organised by the World Hepatitis Alliance (WHA) in collaboration with the World Health Organisation (WHO) to raise awareness of the global burden of hepatitis.
Approximately 325 million people worldwide are estimated to be living with viral hepatitis but of these, 290 million are unaware and not receiving care. Unless these ‘missing millions’ are detected and treated they face the risk of liver disease, liver cancer and passing the infection on to others.
Find the Missing Millions – is a three-year global awareness-raising and advocacy campaign, aimed at tackling the main barriers to diagnosis. A 2018 survey by WHA identified the following as the main barriers to Hepatitis B and C diagnosis globally:
- lack of public knowledge of the disease
- lack of knowledge of the disease amongt healthcare professionals
- lack of easily accessible testing
- stigma and discrimination
- expense to the patient
For 2019, WHO is focussing on the need for increased financing for hepatitis prevention, testing, treatment and care services in the context of universal health coverage (UHC) with a slogan “Invest in eliminating hepatitis”.
The campaign can help to achieve the following objectives:
- to urge national and regional policymakers increase political and financial commitments for hepatitis response
- to highlight WHO’s new costing estimates for hepatitis elimination by 2030
- to encourage people to come forward and access hepatitis prevention, testing and treatment services
Find out more about hepatitis, World Hepatitis Day, the ‘Find the missing millions’ campaign and World Hepatitis Alliance using the following links:
