What can you do about Hepatitis?
This week is world Hepatitis Day and WHO reminded us again to think of Hepatitis. You can do a lot to make this day a thing of the past. You see, hepatitis is a preventable condition that should be managed and controlled by every health system in every country, and like other preventable conditions, it must be stopped.
You must be wondering why hepatitis is not managed and controlled. Why let it progress until the liver is destroyed or develops cancer and people die a very long and painful death? The answer is sadly simple: Because most countries do not have effective disease control programs.
Now, you must be wondering how effective disease control programs work. Like Ebola, TB, HIV and all other infectious and non-communicable diseases, hepatitis needs to be monitored through the county’s disease surveillance system, and public and private health professionals need to report when they encounter a case and implement effective control measures as part of centrally-managed disease control program that coordinates everyone’s actions. You see, every country must have an information system to which everyone working in the health sector reports. The information system must identify the most common health problems that affect the health of their people, and the health authorities must be able to use the information design and manage the implementation of a disease control program for each of those programs.
Why do disease control programs matter? Because effective programs are the ones that must determine the services that are delivered in public and private clinics and hospitals and by community based primary healthcare programs. All programs (MCH, FP, HIV, Hepatitis, etc.) include guidelines and standard operating procedures that must be integrated (or should be) at the point of service by effective health managers and healthcare providers in accordance with the guidelines of the national disease control programs. For example, when a woman comes to a clinic, the healthcare provider will integrate activities of the maternal health program and prevention activities of several other programs such as tetanus, Hepatitis B, etc. Everyone working in the health sector must work to ensure the country’s disease control programs are effectively and efficiently implemented.
Each disease is different and requires specific and evidence-based disease control activities. In the case of hepatitis, which is in fact, several diseases caused by various viruses that lead to inflammation of the liver and show similar symptoms and signs, a number of specific activities need to be part of its disease control program. Hepatitis A can be prevented with proper sanitation and hand washing, and vaccination can prevent hepatitis B. Drug users and those in touch with infected blood can catch hepatitis B, C, and D. However, there is no vaccine for Hepatitis C and D and preventing spread of the disease by those infected become important too. Hepatitis E can be transmitted through contaminated water like A, but there is no vaccine to prevent it, so sanitation and control of outbreaks are essential.
So what can you do for Hepatitis Day? Make it part of your disease control activities every day and work to improve your countries’ health information system, reporting and disease control programs, including expanding and improving vaccination services and sanitation and a safe drinking water supply. In developing countries, donor and international organizations play an important role in sharing their expertise and know-how and must work harder to ensure that every country, every year, consistently increase by at least 10% their capacity and coverage of their disease surveillance and control programs as well and the delivery of preventive and diagnostic and treatment services. I hope you do.
To learn more about RGH’s effective disease control program standard operating procedures and training programs, write to programs@realizingglobalhealth.com
