A Painful Subject

Nobody enjoys talking about diseases such as Hepatitis, but if we all got talking about how to combat the spread of the virus and how to reduce the risks then it could end up being obsolete!

That’s right; Hepatitis is a fully curable disease when patients are given courses of antibiotics, injections and/or liver transplants. The reason that Hepatitis continues to spread is that Health Organisations do not prioritise the treatment of it as they do with other devastating diseases such as HIV and Tuberculosis. The shocking statistic on everyone’s mouths on May 19th (World Hepatitis Awareness Day) will be that one in twelve people are suffering with the disease throughout the world. An estimated 500 million people globally are learning to live with Hepatitis B or C.

So why is Hepatitis so common? One main reason for its abundance is that its causes are largely unknown amongst the public. Most people know that you can catch Hepatitis from shared tattoo or drugs needles, but what many aren’t aware of is that something as little as sharing a toothbrush with someone who has Hepatitis could lead to you catching it.

If you would like to help raise awareness of Hepatitis and begin the battle to stop it in its tracks then visit www.aminumber12.org.