Hepa B a growing health concern

Hundreds of thousands of Filipinos may already be infected with the deadly Hepatitis B virus, but government health officials have no way of knowing for sure. Worldwide, millions are believed to be infected with Hepatitis B. If that percentage were true, the percentage of Filipinos who have the liver-feeding virus would be staggering.

Hepatitis B is a potentially fatal liver disease. It may be transmitted by infected mothers to their newborns; persons with multiple sexual partners, household contacts of chronically infected persons or users of injectible drugs. The virus is passed either directly or indirectly from those who are already infected through their body fluids.

The Department of Health is unable to keep more accurate statistics on hepatitis because those who are infected may not know they have the condition for decades. The overwhelming number of infections is far from recent and many are just now learning that the menacing virus infected their bodies long ago. Indeed, it can often take years for symptoms to surface.

Ideally, a person will go to a doctor when he does not have any symptoms and get himself tested. Most of the time, that just doesn’t happen. As a result, studies wind up counting very few actual cases.

The Asia-Pacific, which includes the Philippines, is a major concern of international disease control organizations – 75 percent of the 350 million people worldwide who are carriers of the virus are found in the region.

Anyone can get the Hepatitis B virus. If you want to know whether you have the virus, you can have yourself tested. There is still an effective treatment even if you’re already infected.

The best way to prevent Hepatitis B infection is through vaccination. In countries like the Philippines, it is recommended that infants be vaccinated. For adults who have not received the vaccine, which only became available in 1982, vaccination is valuable.

Hepatitis B is a huge health problem. If we don’t know who is infected, we will not able to study the population. If we don’t know what fraction of the population is infected, we cannot survey the cases or intervene before people get sick.

Although trends and statistics confirm that there is a decline in the number of new infections from the 1980s to 2001, the greatest decline has happened among children and adolescents, most probably due to routine vaccination against Hepatitis B virus.

People need to be told and they need to be tested. Many will need treatment, and many will need to learn how to prevent further spread of the disease.

As part of the celebration of Global Hepatitis B Week last Oct. 19-26, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) Phils. launched an information campaign on the prevention and treatment of Hepatitis B, with special emphasis on the importance of screening and vaccination.

Various companies and hospitals also participated in the GSK campaign and their employees underwent Hepatitis B screening and vaccination.

Among those which supported GSK in this endeavor were Smart Communications, Rizal Commercial Banking Corp.’s Binondo and Makati branches, Amkor Anam, Icon Communications, Abenson’s Pioneer branch, and Levi Strauss.

Hospitals like San Juan de Dios, Olivarez General Hospital, Our Lady of Pillar Medical Center, Victor Potenciano Medical Center, Bulacan Provincial Hospital, Chong Hua Hospital, Davao Medical Center, Veteran’s Regional Hospital in Nueva Vizcaya and Nueva Ecija Provincial Hospital also supported the campaign.

A lecture was also conducted for better understanding of Hepatitis B. GSK also conducted a whole-day screening and vaccination for its employees at its main office in Makati City.