U.N. News Centre: ‘World has ignored hepatitis at its peril,’ warns U.N. health agency ahead of World Day
“With some 400 million people around the world infected with hepatitis B or C, the United Nations health agency [Wednesday] encouraged countries to boost testing and access to services and medicines for people in need. ‘The world has ignored hepatitis at its peril,’ said Dr. Margaret Chan, director general of the U.N. World Health Organization (WHO). ‘It is time to mobilize a global response to hepatitis on the scale similar to that generated to fight other communicable diseases like HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis.’ The number of people with hepatitis B or C is more than 10 times the number of people infected with HIV, according to U.N. figures…” (7/20).

VOA News: Global Strategy Aims to Reduce Infections, Deaths From Viral Hepatitis
“…The head of the WHO’s global hepatitis program, Stefan Wiktor, says good tools are available to prevent and treat the needless deaths. … Governments at this year’s World Health Assembly adopted the first-ever Global Health Strategy to reduce new viral hepatitis infections by 90 percent and the number of deaths by 65 percent by 2030. Wiktor says seven million deaths could be prevented by 2030” (Schlein, 7/20).