India Reeling Under Burden Of Hepatitis B & C: Both Newborns & Adults Should Be Vaccinated For Better Coverage

New Delhi: With 2.9 crore people living with Hepatitis B infection and 0.55 crore living with Hepatitis C infection, India is one of the countries with the highest burden of viral hepatitis, according to the Global Hepatitis Report 2024 released by the World Health Organisation (WHO) on Tuesday.

The infection causes liver inflammation, damage and may lead to liver cancer.

Over 50,000 new Hepatitis B cases and 1.4 lakh new Hepatitis C cases were reported in 2022.
These infections killed 1.23 lakh people in India in 2022 as per the report.
Both infections are transmitted from mother to child during delivery, during transfusion of blood that hasn’t been screened properly, during contact with the blood of an infected person or while sharing needles by drug users.

Why vaccination is important?

Since Hepatitis B can be prevented through vaccination, the report highlights the need to ensure coverage. Hepatitis C is curable with medicines.

“In order to reduce the burden of Hepatitis B in India, there is a need to ensure that all newborns receive complete vaccination. It should also be offered to adults who were born before the vaccine was included in the national programme,” Dr SK Sarin, vice-chancellor of the Institute of Liver and Biliary Sciences, Delhi told The Indian Express.

What are Hepatitis B & C?

Hepatitis B is known to cause acute infection with nausea, vomiting and yellowing of the eye and skin for several weeks. Liver failure happens in severe cases. But the challenge is the chronic, life-long liver disease that it causes, especially when children get it. The chronic infection can lead to scarring of the liver called cirrhosis and increase the risk of liver cancer. There are medicines to slow the progress of the virus in chronic cases.

Many people with the hepatitis C virus don’t have symptoms or know they are infected. Those who develop symptoms two to 12 weeks after exposure report yellow skin or eyes, loss of appetite, nausea, stomach ache, fever, dark urine, light-coloured stool, joint pain and exhaustion.

Diagnostics & treatment

In India, the coverage of diagnosis and treatment for both Hepatitis B & C is very low. The report says that only 2.4 per cent of the Hepatitis B cases were diagnosed and 0 per cent received treatment. For Hepatitis C, the coverage of diagnostics and treatment was found to be better in India, with 28 per cent being diagnosed and 21 per cent receiving treatment.