Ghana records high prevalence of hepatitis B

The country has a high hepatitis B prevalence of over eight per cent, the National Viral Hepatitis Control Programme Manager, Dr Atsu Seake-Kwawu, has said.

This indicates that the country is hyper-endemic for hepatitis B which is predominantly driven by mother-to-child transmission and not only through sexual intercourse, he said.

"This points to intergenerational transmission within our country which we must address to have an impact on the prevalence of the disease. 

“The moment the country starts addressing this, our prevalence will come down,” he said, adding that worldwide, eight per cent is used to determine the hyper-endemicity of a country.

Dr Seake-Kwawu was speaking at the third national hepatitis summit in Accra yesterday. It was organised by Hepatitis Alliance of Ghana, an NGO. 

The two-day event which is on the topic: “Making elimination of viral hepatitis a reality in Ghana,” is being attended by healthcare professionals, researchers, academics and civil society organisations who will discuss potential strategies to achieve the global hepatitis target.

Testing

Dr Seake-Kwawu, who spoke on “the country’s response to the burden of hepatitis: lessons from a “Stop Hepatitis C” Ghana treatment project, said the importance of testing was key in the fight against the disease.

He, therefore, encouraged all, particularly pregnant women to get tested for the disease for early treatment to prevent those with a high viral load from sharing it with their unborn babies.

“As far as hepatitis B is concerned, it is only testing that will tell you if you have it from childhood. “We have to scale up testing as a country to be able to identify the majority of people who are infected to put them on treatment,” the programme manager added.

Viral hepatitis

Hepatitis B is among the viral hepatitis in the country. The others are hepatitis A, C, D and E.

He, however, said that hepatitis A and E were related to water, sanitation and food and that although they caused acute illnesses, they were not chronic.

Dr Seake-Kwawu added that hepatitis A and E could cause outbreaks that would require control, while hepatitis B and C infection led to chronic complications.

For hepatitis D, he said, it did not exist independently and needed hepatitis B to be present.

Dr Seake-Kwawu said that although they all affected the liver and showed similar presentations, they were addressed differently.

He said while there were vaccines available for hepatitis A and B, there was no vaccine for hepatitis C and E, except in China.

Dr Seake-Kwawu further mentioned some of the milestone responses to contain the spread of the disease in the country to include “STOP HepC Ghana Project” , a nationwide hepatitis C patient recruitment and the fact that Egypt had agreed to support Ghana with 150,000 courses of DAA.

Objective

The Operations Manager of Hepatitis Alliance of Ghana, Prosper Senyo Sokpe, said the summit was aimed at helping healthcare providers to gain new knowledge on how to treat people with viral hepatitis and also educate them on how to prevent the disease.