World Hepatitis Day (WHD)

WHD is an awareness and advocacy campaign that is, in 2018, dovetailing with the World Hepatitis Alliance's 3-year programme to help countries reach the global target to diagnose 30% of people by 2020 and 95% by 2030. They are doing this in the first instance by better understanding the barriers to diagnosis and the context in which they are experienced and by exploring the role that people living with viral hepatitis can have in overcoming those barriers. They plan to use the information gathered to inform future activities in the area of diagnosis. To support this pursuit, as as part of WHD, the Alliance is working to raise awareness, influence national testing policies, and encourage people to get tested and become advocates in the journey to find the undiagnosed.

In 2018, WHO is focusing on the theme "Test. Treat. Hepatitis." with the objectives to: support scale-up of hepatitis prevention, testing, treatment, and care services, with specific focus on promoting WHO testing and treatment recommendations; showcase best practices and promote universal health coverage of hepatitis services; and improve partnerships and funding in the fight against viral hepatitis. For example, WHO and the Government of Mongolia are holding a series of events in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, to engage high-level leaders, advocates, and patient representatives from global, regional, and national organisations, highlighting the innovative solutions and partnerships needed in scaling up hepatitis testing and treatment services, as well as celebrating the country's experience in the global hepatitis response.

Taking WHD-related action can entail:

• Raising awareness by creating your own WHD posters and sharing them on social media, using them in media outreach, or displaying them at your events. Click here to download WHD materials. Suggested hashtags are: #WorldHepatitisDay, #FindtheMissingMillions, #NOhep, and #hepatitis.
• Encouraging action by organising an event - e.g., informational seminars, marches, concerts, workshops for activists or healthcare professionals, art competitions, or flash mobs.
• Advocating for change - influencing decision-makers to develop and implement testing strategies by, for example, organising a meeting with decision-makers to discuss the importance of screening campaigns and/or getting in touch with local media and providing real human stories of people being cured of hepatitis C. Find out how to use WHD to advocate for change in the campaign toolkit [PDF].
• Showing support for WHD by adding your organisation name and logo to the campaign supporters list.

Click here to view past WHD reports.

Health; Immunisation and Vaccines

The WHO estimates that globally in 2015, approximately 325 million persons were infected with hepatitis B virus (HBV) or hepatitis C virus. They are silent epidemics, hitting children and marginalised populations the hardest, which includes people who inject drugs (PWID), Indigenous populations, men who have sex with men (MSM), migrants, and people living with HIV/AIDS. Among the estimated 257 million persons infected with HBV in 2015, only 27 million (10.5%) were aware of their infection, including 4.5 million (16.7%) who were on treatment. Nearly 900,000 of them died, primarily as a result of complications of cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma. Overall, hepatitis B treatment coverage is low among countries in all income strata. Increased awareness of, access to, and availability of affordable diagnostics, as well as training of health care providers, might increase access to treatment.