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WHO calls for quick action to reduce deaths from viral hepatitis

Xinhua, July 21, 2016 Adjust font size:

Ahead of World Hepatitis Day on July 28, the World Health Organization (WHO) Wednesday calls for countries to take rapid action to reduce deaths from viral hepatitis as an estimated 1.45 million people died of the disease in 2013, up from less than a million in 1990.

"The world has ignored hepatitis at its peril," said WHO Director-General Margaret Chan, "It is time to mobilize a global response to hepatitis on the scale similar to that generated to fight other communicable diseases like HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis."

According to WHO, around the world 400 million people are infected with hepatitis B and C, more than 10 times the number of people living with HIV. Today, only 1 in 20 people with viral hepatitis know they have it. And just 1 in 100 with the disease is being treated.

In May, at the World Health Assembly, 194 members adopted the first ever Global Health Sector Strategy on viral hepatitis and agreed to the first-ever global targets.

The strategy includes a target to treat 8 million persons for hepatitis B or C by 2020. The longer term aim is to reduce new viral hepatitis infections by 90 percent and to reduce the number of deaths due to viral hepatitis by 65 percent by 2030 from 2016 figures.

WHO noted the strategy is ambitious, but the tools to achieve the targets are already in hand. An effective vaccine and treatment for hepatitis B exists. There is no vaccine for hepatitis C but there has been dramatic progress on treatment for the disease in the past few years.

"We need to act now to stop people from dying needlessly from hepatitis," said Gottfried Hirnschall, WHO's Director of the HIV/AIDS Department and Global Hepatitis Programme. "This requires a rapid acceleration of access to services and medicines for all people in need." Endit