The World Health Organization (WHO) designated July 28th as World Hepatitis Day. This date was chosen to honor the birthday of Dr. Baruch Blumberg who discovered hepatitis B and is one of the developers of the first hepatitis B vaccine. The campaign for 2022 is Bringing Hepatitis Care Closer to Communities. Their goal is to eliminate hepatitis by 2030 and educating the public is an important step in helping to reach this goal. They encourage testing babies, teens, and adults for hepatitis to treat those afflicted and promote educating global communities on preventive measures for the various forms of hepatitis. Currently, there is an outbreak of acute hepatitis among children that worries global health officials because the cause is not known. While health officials are still working to discover the cause of this recent outbreak, there are steps pregnant women can take to help ensure that their babies don’t get hepatitis B, as mentioned in the WHO’s calls to action.
Hepatitis is inflammation of the liver that can be caused by medical conditions, medications, alcohol use, or viruses. Hepatitis A, B, and C are the three most common types of viral hepatitis. This disease can cause damage to the liver and in some cases is fatal.
UW Resources
- Dangerous Medicine: The Story behind Human Experiments with Hepatitis (2021)
- Chronic Hepatitis B And C: Basic Science To Clinical Applications (2012)
- Hepatitis C (2008). An educational film for nurses (35 min.)
- The Lancet Infectious Diseases article: Hepatitis E: An Emerging Infection in Developed Countries (2008)
- Journal of Hepatology article: The Global Prevalence of Hepatitis D Virus Infection: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis (2020)
- UW Medicine Health Library videos for patient health information: Hepatitis A (includes related videos, hepatitis B, C, and alcoholic hepatitis)
Other Resources
- An NIH publication: Hepatitis B What Asian and Pacific Islander Americans Need to Know (2011 factsheet)
- Johns Hopkins Medicine’s information page on the types of hepatitis including the five types of viral hepatitis: Hepatitis (consumer health information)
- An NPR article on the CDC’s investigation of recently reported cases of children with hepatitis of an unknown cause. (May, 19 2022)
- Seattle’s Hepatitis Education Project offers viral hepatitis testing and vaccination services and aims to educate the public about hepatitis, particularly marginalized communities.
- CDC’s Professional Resources for Hepatitis.
- From NCBI Bookshelf Addressing Viral Hepatitis in People With Substance Use Disorders: Appendix C Hepatitis Resources
- The Department of Health and Human Services’ GHOST: Global Hepatitis Outbreak Surveillance Technology—from the introduction: Provides accurate information for designing, guiding and monitoring public health interventions.
Image credit:
World Health Organization. (2022). World Hepatitis Day. Retrieved from https://www.who.int/campaigns/world-hepatitis-day.