The Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria (PSN) has stressed that the country is seriously in need of strong collaboration with other countries in order to be able to eliminate viral hepatitis, which has been projected to be a public health threat by 2030. This was the highlight of a media briefing by the PSN President, Mazi Sam Ohuabunwa, during a programme to celebrate this year’s World Hepatitis Day.
A hepatitis-free future is surely achievable with a united effort, he insisted. According to Ohuabunwa, someone dies from a hepatitis-related illness every 30 seconds, a crisis worsened by the current COVID-19 pandemic. Pharmacists can’t wait to act on viral hepatitis, he added. “We have set up screening, education and enlightening campaigns all over the country to equip people with knowledge to act. Today is marked throughout the globe as World Hepatitis Day (WHD). World Hepatitis Day is observed each year to raise awareness of viral hepatitis, an inflammation of the liver that causes severe liver disease,” Ohuabunwa said.
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According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), over 354 million people worldwide live with chronic hepatitis. Over 8000 new infections of hepatitis B and C occur every day and more than one million deaths from advanced liver disease and liver cancer occur every year. Ohuabunwa decried the low vaccination of COVID-19 vaccine in the country amid the new Delta variant spread. He said that this unacceptable gap in vaccination is too bad as the new strain, Delta variant, is ravaging. “This is because Delta strain spreads two times faster than the most common strain, especially in unvaccinated persons. The World Health Organisation (WHO) has called this version of the virus the fastest; while the CDC of the United States labelled Delta as a variant of concern. Delta variant, a SARS-CoV-2 mutation that originally surfaced in India in December 2020, is real and the strain spread rapidly and almost becoming the dominant strain of the virus. Delta variant is the most dominant strain presently in India and the UK and by the end of June, it has made up more than 20 per cent of cases in the U.S. and has also been identified in Nigeria,” he said.
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