World Hepatitis Day Initiatives
The World Hepatitis Alliance supports campaigners and patient organisations around the world to help make a difference to the lives of the millions of people living with viral hepatitis and to prevent new infections. To find out more on what is going on in your country, use the map below to find local organisations, World Hepatitis Day initiatives and other initiatives.
You can also look at our ‘Wall of Stories’ and submit your own personal experience of living with hepatitis or find other community resources including an Online Scrapbook and our latest Newsletters. The This is hepatitis... blog features bloggers from around the world talking about their experiences with hepatitis.
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Country: China (Taiwan, China)
City: Taipei
Type: WHD
Taiwan, China - WHD 2011
On World Hepatitis Day the Taiwanese Department of Health announced its decision to include free hepatitis B and C tests in the country’s routine health checks for people over 40 with effect from August 2011. This is aimed at detecting hepatitis in the adult population and preventing liver scarring and liver cancer as a result of chronic hepatitis.
Chronic hepatitis, known as the “silent disease”, has few or no symptoms, said Chen Ding-shinn , Chair of the Coalition to Eradicate Viral Hepatitis in Asia Pacific. Professor Chen also said that more than 50 per cent of chronic liver patients in the Asia-Pacific region have not been tested and nearly 40 per cent do not have access to free or subsidized medical treatment.
To escalate awareness of hepatitis prevention and treatment in southern Taiwan, Kaohsiung Medical University Hospital (KMUH) set up a hepatitis C centre on World Hepatitis Day. Professor Wan-long Chuang who heads the centre and is also the President of the Taiwan Association for the Study of the Liver said the occurrence of hepatitis in Taiwan has fallen drastically since the implementation of mandatory hepatitis B vaccination for newborns in1985 but the prevalence rate of hepatitis in southern Taiwan still reaches 5.4 percent to 6.3 percent, much higher than the 1.2 percent to 2.7 percent in northern Taiwan. Additionally, KMUH, Kaohsiung Municipal Ta-Yung Hospital and Kaohsiung Municipal Hsiao-Kang Hospital jointly provided free liver disease check-ups from July 25th through July 30th. KMUH also held a hepatitis C symposium where experts from different fields discussed academic achievements regarding hepatitis.
The national media reported on World Hepatitis Day, including some of the major media outlets in the country such as the Taipei Times and The China Post.
