Australia demands action in fight against Hepatitis

Australian researchers and health officials are demanding action on the occasion of World Hepatitis Day, which falls on July 28, as social and cultural stigmas continue to impact treatment outcomes. Some 400,000 Australians are living with hepatitis, despite recent studies indicating that cure rates for Hep-C now exceed 75 per cent across the country. The WHO-sponsored World Hepatitis Day, which began in 2008, looks to raise awareness of and investment for research into Hepatitis B and C, and the more than 50 million people that are thought to be infected worldwide. Like AIDS and other blood borne viruses, hepatitis B and C are prevalent in Australia with clear, often damning demographic patterns. Figures released this week by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) showed that an astonishing twenty per cent of prison inmates suffer from both hepatitis B and C. As with the spread of AIDS in the early 1980s, hepatitis moves silently between intravenous drug users, and can eventually cause cirrhosis, liver failure, and liver cancer. About 20 per cent of patients develop cirrhosis within 10 to 20 years of the onset of infection, while liver failure from chronic hepatitis C is one of the most common causes for liver transplants. Despite promising early indications of a cure for Hepatitis C, Australian complacency about the risks of contracting the debilitating disease, is compounding a national push to stifle its progress, according to some worrying health officials. In the lead up to the Hepatitis Day, Australia's most populous state, New South Wales (NSW) has initiated 'Hepatitis Awareness Week," to highlight the urgency of people living with hepatitis B or C to take proactive steps to treat the disease. "Now is the right time for people who may have been living with hepatitis C for years, or even decades, to visit their doctor to get a referral to have their liver health assessed," Hepatitis New South Wales Chief Executive Officer Stuart Loveday said. Hepatitis B and C have a massive impact on not just the lives affected by the disease, but the wider Australian economy, representing a 40 percent greater imposition on health costs than chronic kidney disease and Type 2 diabetes combined. In 2013 the estimated burden on the health system is somewhere in the vicinity of 50 billion Australian dollars per annum. Of most concern for Australian officials is the damage Hep-C is wreaking on indigenous Australians. In Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, Hep-C is found at more than twice the rate as for the wider community. "Treatment is especially important to help reduce the impact of both hepatitis B and hepatitis C on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, a group that is disproportionately affected by both viruses compared to the non-Aboriginal community," Mr. Loveday said. Today, more than 226,000 people in Australia are estimated to be living with chronic hepatitis C and 170,000 people with chronic hepatitis B. Speaking to the Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC) during Hepatitis Awareness Week, Professor Geoff McCaughan, head of the Liver Immunobiology Program at Sydney's Centenary Research Institute, said a cure was closer than ever with preliminary researches for liver transplant candidates with Hep-C were showing promising results. "We are starting to see some dramatic responses with these drugs.. at present, people with Hepatitis C have the worst outcomes for patients receiving liver transplants. This could dramatically alter that picture," Prof. McCaughan told the ABC. The message this year, however runs against the promise of a cure, because while new drugs may hold great promise, prevention rather than cure remains a more efficacious and economic option. Mid North Coast Local Health District Manager of HIV and Related Programs, Jenny Heslop said there's still a lot of ground to be made even though blood donor screening, Hepatitis B vaccinations and the Needle Syringe Program have minimized rates of transmission. "Although there are new and effective treatments available for people with hepatitis C available across many centers on the Mid and North Coasts, treatment uptake rates for hepatitis C are very low," Ms Heslop said. "Not many people in the community know that hepatitis C can be treated and in many cases cured, allowing people to live healthy virus-free lives," she said. And for the many Australians living daily with Hep-C, while breakthrough therapies currently under the microscope offer a distant light at the end of a dark tunnel, the message this year is don't wait for a cure, seek treatment while you still can.