Hepatitis, Deadly Disease Without Symptoms

Hepatitis virus alert. This is a cause of liver disease that can affect anyone. Therefore, do prevention early. The disease kills more people than other infectious diseases.
"Hepatitis is a disease that can be prevented by immunization (PD3I). And hepatitis B immunization is given to the newborn is the beginning of efforts to control hepatitis in Indonesia, "said Minister of Health, Endang Rahayu Sedyaningsih, the World Hepatitis Day seminar, in Building Ministry of Health, Jakarta, Thursday, July 28, 2011.
Viral hepatitis virus kills secretly, said Dr. Samalee Plianbangchang, WHO Regional Director for the region SEAR (South East Asia: Bangladesh, Bhutan, North Korea, India, Indonesia, Myanmar, Nepal, Maldives, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Timor Leste).
That is, people who are infected will not show obvious symptoms. In fact, it appears healthy for many years, before finally showing the occurrence of complications. "This disease attacks the productive age population, causing an economic burden for families and ultimately the country," he said.
There are four types of viral hepatitis are most common, namely hepatitis A, B, C and E.In the 11 SEAR countries in the region, a total of four deaths from the virus is greater than the number of deaths from malaria, dengue, and HIV / AIDS. Each year an estimated 8.98 million cases of hepatitis occurred, with 585 thousand of them died.
Of these, 400 thousand cases and 800 deaths due to hepatitis A, 1.38 million cases and 300 thousand deaths due to hepatitis B, and 500 thousand and 120 thousand cases of deaths due to hepatitis C. While 6.5 million cases of hepatitis E due to 160 thousand deaths and 2,700 miscarriages.
Environment that is not clean, infected blood, and unprotected sex are some of the intermediate transmission of hepatitis. While hepatitis A is transmitted through food and beverages. Hepatitis B and C through blood and other body fluids.
In Southeast Asia, hepatitis A and E become a major threat because of personal and environmental hygiene such as washing hands with clean water tends to go unnoticed.While hepatitis B is considered 50-100 times more easily transmitted than HIV. An estimated 100 million people with chronic hepatitis B (5.6% of the population) and 30 million people with chronic hepatitis C (1.6% of the population) live in SEAR.
Because they do not show symptoms, 60 percent of people infected with hepatitis B and C often do not realize it until they suffer complications such as cirrhosis or liver cancer type called hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). If it is up at this stage, the patient's condition was not treatable.
To prevent and control hepatitis virus, the WHO encourages countries to make the control of hepatitis as a national priority. WHO urged all countries to an increase in hepatitis B vaccination coverage for infants up to 95 percent, requires testing and screening for blood products (transfusion) and hepatitis tests in monitoring the quality of government and private laboratories.
"Many health professionals lack of attention to security, and not run prevention, screening, treatment and other follow-up for hepatitis B and C according to WHO guidelines or government," said Samalee.