The World Health Organization (WHO) from the year 2010 established July 28 of each year as a day to commemorate the fight against this disease, whose date is the birth of the American professor Baruch Samuel Blumberg, Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1976, for his work on the origin and spread of infectious diseases, finder of the hepatitis B virus, as well as the creator of its vaccine.
The goal of this celebration is to raise awareness about viral hepatitis and the diseases it can cause. In addition to being essential for the population to be informed, it can also have access to prevention, diagnosis, and timely treatment resources, provided by the States of the world through their public health institutions.
Hepatitis is a disease that causes inflammation of the liver, which is a vital organ that fulfills multiple essential functions for the health and life of people. Hepatitis A and E are caused by the consumption of water or food contaminated with the virus. On the other hand, hepatitis B, C, and D are caused by direct contact with bodily fluids of infected people, blood transfusion, surgical operations with contaminated medical equipment, transmission from mother to baby during childbirth, and sexual contact.
Hepatitis B has no cure and its symptoms can disappear between four (04) and eight (08) weeks after infection with the virus; however, it represents a potentially fatal liver infection and a significant public health problem on a global scale that carries a high risk of death for patients with cirrhosis and liver cancer.
Join the 2023 campaign
For July 28, 2023, under the motto “We’re not waiting” or “We are not waiting” it seeks to raise awareness and unite the world community, echo their voices so that they are heard. Additionally it is a day of celebration for the objectives achieved but at the same time visualizing and facing the challenges of the moment.
Also is a new opportunity to remember and promote a real political change from governments that facilitate the implementation of public policies to help the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of the population that contributes to reducing the statistical figures that establish that each year more than one million people die from hepatitis.
WHD 2023 is an excellent opportunity to tell the world that:
- People living with viral hepatitis without knowing it can’t wait to get tested.
- Patients living with hepatitis are eager for life-saving treatment.
- Expectant mothers cannot wait for the arrest and treatment of hepatitis.
- Newborn babies cannot wait to receive the vaccination dose at birth
- Patients affected by hepatitis are eager to end the enigma and discrimination.
- Community organizations are eager for increased investment
- Policymakers cannot wait and must act now to make hepatitis elimination a reality through political will and funding.
We can all participate in WHD 2023. For this, you must consult the website, where you can find the different ways to participate, sign the commitment, and access the guidelines and resources of the campaign.
Examples of some of the scheduled activities:
Webinar
World hepatitis day 2023 community forum
Date July 25, 2023, at 1:00 p.m. London time
Webinar
We #Don’thope to beat hepatitis and cancer together
Date July 27, 2023, at 1:00 p.m. London time
For both activities, you must register.
Finally from WHD 2023, we say “We are not waiting”.
