52 m living with Hepatitis B, C in India: WHO

Aditi Tandon

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, July 28

Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal and Thailand today became the first countries in the WHO South-East Asia Region to achieve control over Hepatitis B with prevalence of the deadly disease dropping to less than 1% among five-year-old children.

The declaration, which came from the World Health Organisation (WHO) on the occasion of World Hepatitis Day today, is significant as it does not include India.

India continues to reel under the growing burden of chronic liver disease, cirrhosis and liver cancer caused by Hepatitis B (HBV) and Hepatitis C (HCV) viruses which spread through contaminated blood, mainly unsafe transfusion or injection practices. WHO estimates India’s national prevalence of HBV at 4% of the population and HCV at 1.2%.

“As many as 40 million people in India live with chronic HBV and 12 million with the chronic HCV virus. And yet we have been looking for a concerted national response to these killer viruses. The solution lies in administering HBV vaccine at birth to each of our 2.7 crore newborns annually. Hepatitis C, on the other hand, can be addressed by screening the population and later providing them free treatment. There is no vaccine for HCV,” says Samir Shah, founder, National Liver Foundation.

The WHO and the government data suggest over a million people die annually in India due to liver diseases caused by Hepatitis B and C. Approximately one lakh people die of liver cirrhosis and liver cancer caused principally by Hepatitis B virus alone.

SK Sarin, Director, Institute of Liver and Biliary Sciences, New Delhi, says, “Hepatitis B and C viruses are silent killers. They lay dormant in the bodies of carriers for 20 to 30 years before showing signs. This makes detection a challenge.”