Anti-hepatitis camp at Thrissur Medical College

Thiruvananthapuram: On World Hepatitis Day, HLL Life Care, along with their subsidiary unit, HLL Biotech Ltd is providing free vaccination at Thrissur Medical College on Thursday aimed at vulnerable groups like medical students, doctors, nurses, lab technicians, sweepers etc who are more prone to get hepatitis.

The Hepatitis-B immunisation camp is offering HBL’s ‘HIVAC B’ vaccine  to the staff and students of Medical College and Kudumbasree cleaning workers.

“Viral hepatitis is now the seventh leading cause of death and disability in the world and is killing more people in a year than HIV/AIDS, TB/ malaria according to the Global Burden of Disease Study 2013,” said a HLL official.

Less than five percent of people living with viral hepatitis are aware of their condition, largely because of its asymptomatic character and lack of routine screening.  In India there are over 40 million Hepatitis B infected patients, second only to China, the official added.

The goal set by World Health Organisation for eliminating Hepatitis-B and C includes a set of prevention and treatment targets which if reached, will reduce annual deaths by 65%  saving 7.5 million lives globally by 2030.

More than 1 billion Hepatitis-B vaccines have been used since the early 1980s and it has been shown effective in approximately 95% cases.