Hepatitis B cure research: health organisations, patient groups, scientists launch campaign
- China, India, Nigeria, Indonesia and the Philippines account for nearly 60 per cent of the 257 million people chronically infected with the disease
- Hepatitis B kills 900,000 people a year, twice as many as malaria, but gets less attention; antiviral drugs keep it in check, but vaccination rates need to rise
A coalition of researchers, health organisations and patient groups have launched an ambitious campaign to cure hepatitis B, a disease that kills twice as many people as malaria but gets far less attention.
“Inexplicably, despite the huge human and economic toll of chronic hepatitis B (HBV), research remains largely underfunded,” said Peter Revill, a senior scientist at Royal Melbourne Hospital’s Doherty Institute. “HBV cure research could make all the difference.”
More than 257 million people are chronically infected with the disease, which attacks the liver and can lead to a deadly form of cancer called hepatocellular carcinoma.
In Hong Kong, 232 people were reported to have had viral hepatitis (there are five types, A, B, C, D and E) in 2017, and two of them died.
There is no cure, but antiviral drugs have proven effective in coping with symptoms. A test for HBV has been available since the 1970s, and a 95 per cent effective vaccine since the early 1980s. And yet HBV accounted for nearly 900,000 deaths in 2017, twice the number caused by malaria, according to the World Health Organisation.