To coincide with World Hepatitis Awareness Day a report was launched on October 1st 2007 by the Central and Eastern European Harm Reduction Network which shows that, across Europe, more than 90% of people who are infected with the hepatitis C virus (HCV) have not been diagnosed.
This has prompted experts to warn that the official HCV prevalence statistics are unreliable and inaccurate, and that governments must ensure accessible screening systems so that people are encouraged to ‘get tested’.
At a media event in Brussels organised by the European Liver Patients Association (ELPA), Professor Gerry Stimson (the IHRA Executive Director) presented the findings from the report and told how an estimated 500,000 deaths each year are attributed to HCV around the world, and there are around 180 million people infected globally (four times more than are infected with HIV).
And yet he referred to it as a “neglected disease” due to the lack of knowledge and awareness, and the stigma attached to injecting drug use (which is now the most prominent cause new HCV cases).
Stephen Hughes (a member of the European Parliament) had earlier warned that “without urgent action, we are going to see a huge peak in mortality by 2020” and Professor Stimson concluded by emphasising that, through the scaling-up of proven harm reduction approaches, this is a “preventable epidemic”.
HCV is often asymptomatic, earning it the reputation as a ‘silent killer’ – as many people may be experiencing severe liver damage without knowing.
At the event, Charles Gore (Executive Director of The Hepatitis C Trust)read a statement that had been written by Dame Anita Roddick (the businesswoman, environmentalist and human rights campaigner who founded The Body Shop) before she died from a brain haemorrhage in September 2007.
In the statement, Dame Anita said, “I had no idea I had the virus. There was nothing to even make me suspect it. It showed up by chance [but] I’d had it for over 30 years”. She then added that “the beginning of health is to know your disease”.
The media event came after a meeting at the European Parliament, at which the issues around HCV were highlighted. World Hepatitis Awareness Day aims to bring together patient groups, doctors, politicians and the media to discuss the virus and advocate for action at the national, regional and international levels – including accessible HCV screening programmes.
In a recorded message for the event in Brussels, Christopher Kennedy Lawford (the US actor and author who was diagnosed with HCV in 2001) summed up the message perfectly: “knowing whether or not you are infected gives you the power to take control and make decisions… get tested!”
In 2008, World Hepatitis Awareness Day will be on May 19th, four days after the end of Harm Reduction 2008 (IHRA’s 19th International Conference). As such, there will be a major focus on hepatitis at the conference (with the support of the World Health Organization) in order to pre-launch the events on the 19th.
