World Hepatitis Day 2022: Bringing Hepatitis Care Closer to You

World Hepatitis Day is annually held on July 28 to promote awareness of hepatitis, a disease that affects the liver. On World Hepatitis Day there is an impulsion for more global mindfulness about the infection, its diagnosis, and how to prevent it, among other things.

On World Hepatitis Day 2022, WHO is highlighting the need for bringing hepatitis care closer to the primary health facilities and communities so that people have better access to treatment and care, no matter what type of hepatitis they may have.

Primarily observed on May 19, World Hepatitis Day was moved to July 28 in 2010. The World Hepatitis Alliance was founded in the year 2007, and in 2008, the first community-organized World Hepatitis Day was observed. This happened after the World Health Assembly decided to commemorate the birthday of Baruch Samuel Blumberg. He was the American physician who discovered Hepatitis B in the 1960s.

The Hepatitis virus has five typically known strains. They are types A, B, C, and D. All of them upset the liver but there are some key distinctions in origin, transmission, and rigorousness of the disease. Hepatitis can be preventable with immunization and manageable, but there is no cure at present.

Hepatitis simply means inflammation of the liver and can be caused by different things. One of the most common causes of chronic hepatitis is viral infection. According to the World Hepatitis Alliance, about 500 million people are currently infected with chronic hepatitis B or C and 1 in 3 people have been exposed to one or both viruses.

Worldwide exertions give priority to the elimination of hepatitis B, C, and D infections. Unlike acute viral hepatitis, these three infections lead to chronic hepatitis that lasts for several decades and culminates in over one million deaths per year that happen because of cirrhosis and liver cancer.