Botswana hit by insidious hepatitis
Causes more deaths than HIV
Type B hepatitis common in Botswana
Hepatitis, a liver-damaging disease, has in recent years claimed the lives of more people than have malaria, tuberculosis, road injuries and HIV/AIDS.
It is a global trend, where about 1.5 million people were killed by hepatitis - a figure equal to or even more than the combined deaths from other life threatening conditions, according to recent data from the World Health Organisation (WHO).
However, only one in 20 people know that they have hepatitis and just one in 100 people with the disease are treated although there are vaccines and treatments available. Dr Francesca Cainelli of the liver clinic at Princess Marina Hospital in Gaborone explains that hepatitis is the inflammation of the liver caused by various reasons with alcohol being the most dominant.
According to Dr Cainelli, people who are chronically infected with hepatitis B, the most common type in Botswana, can develop liver cirrhosis or liver cancer. She says that symptoms of the disease include fatigue, nausea, vomiting and jaundice (yellowing of the skin and whites of the eyes), fever, decreased appetite, dark urine, grey-coloured faeces and joint pain. “When it becomes chronic, it can lead to liver failure and death,” she says.
In a statement, WHO Director-General Margaret Chan noted that, “The world has ignored hepatitis at its peril”.
While deaths from other infectious diseases like diarrhea, malaria and tuberculosis are declining, hepatitis is now one of the leading causes of death around the globe. In fact, in 2013 viral hepatitis was the seventh leading cause of death worldwide, compared with 1990, when it was the 10th. There are five distinct viruses that cause the disease: A, B, C, D and E. Types A and E are spread through food and water contaminated with faecal matter of an infected person and while it may cause acute illness, the patients usually recover if they adhere to treatment. Hepatitis E can however be fatal to pregnant women. Types B and C are transmitted through blood and other bodily fluids and are more lethal and fatal. They are spread through unsafe sex, during childbirth from an infected mother to her child, contaminated medical equipment and drug needles.
WHO has launched an ambitious target to treat eight million people for hepatitis B or C by 2020. The aim is to reduce new viral hepatitis infections by 90 per cent and reduce the number of deaths due to viral hepatitis by 65 per cent by 2030.
