20m Nigerians infected with Hepatitis B, C

As Nigeria joined the rest of the world to mark this year’s world hepatitis day (WHD) Tuesday, experts have revealed that approximately 20 million Nigerians are infected with Hepatitis B and C virus, and 25 percent of these will develop chronic liver disease while 500,000 to 700,000 will die from the disease annually.

The Head, Prevention Department of Public Health at the Federal Ministry of Health, Dr Chukwuma Anyaike, stated this at a one-day stakeholders’ advocacy workshop on Viral Hepatitis awareness programme organised last week by the Yakubu Gowon Foundation in Abuja.

According to Dr. Anyaike, Viral Hepatitis is a very big public health issue in Nigeria. “By the work that the Federal Ministry of Health has done, the statistics available showed that we have about 20 million Nigerians living with Hepatitis B and C and they are at the risk of developing cirrhosis of the liver and cancer of the liver. Most importantly, these ones are living in the communities and they are not aware of it and in the same process, they are transferring the infection to other people in the community”, he said.

Also, a public physician and member publicity committee, Nigeria Medical Association Rivers State Chapter, Dr. Paul John, disclosed that Nigeria is one of the countries in the world with the highest Hepatitis infection with its over 20 million infected cases and considering the fact that about 400 million people in the world are living with either Hepatitis B or C according to World Health Organization (WHO).

John however lamented that the disease has attracted very little attention from both the government and the people of Nigeria despite the fact that Hepatitis B virus alone is about 50 to 100 times more infectious than HIV.

“It is pathetic that many people worry more about contracting AIDS than Hepatitis, even when in reality in each year about 1.4 million people worldwide die due to these viral hepatitis infections and more become infected. At times, infected people die faster with viral hepatitis than they would with AIDS. Remember that globally, HIV-AIDS currently kills close to 1.6 million people yearly”, he said.

Explaining the theme for this year’s WHD which is “Prevention of Viral hepatitis”, he noted that many cases of the infection are traceable to blood transfusion. According to Dr. John, the current test used in detecting the viral infections in many hospitals in Nigeria cannot detect the viral antigen in newly infected individuals hence patients who were transfused with some units of blood (that were certified Hepatitis B and C negative) later come down with hepatitis B or C infection.

“In view of this, our hospitals should upgrade to the use of Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) in screening blood samples (especially those units of blood from donors with questionable lifestyles). This is because the current tests used in detecting the viral infections in many hospitals in developing countries are targeted at detecting the infecting viral particle in the serum hence it takes some time (the incubation period etc) before the current tests in many developing countries can detect the antigen/antibody in a newly infected individual. But the PCR can detect the infection at each stage of the disease.

Warning about the consequence of hepatitis infection, a cancer advocate with the Committee Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy (CECP-Nigeria), Dr. Abia Nzelu, explained that Infection with HBV or HCV is the main cause of liver cancer leading to 80% of liver cancer deaths worldwide.

“In Nigeria, liver cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death, accounting for over 11,000 deaths yearly and 32 deaths every day. Liver cancer is rare in children and teenagers. The average age of occurrence in Nigeria is about 46 years compared to the developed world where the average age of occurrence is in the mid 60s.

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