Make treatment of Hepatitis B accessible to rural communities, Afenyo advocates

Accra-Ghana, Feb. 14, GNA- Mr Alexander Kwamena Afenyo-Markin, Deputy Majority Leader, on Tuesday appealed to the government to make testing, vaccination, and treatment of Hepatitis B accessible to rural communities.
He said it was vital that testing, diagnosis, vaccination, and treatment of Hepatitis B be enrolled into the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) to make its treatment affordable or even free as done for Tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS.
Presenting a statement on Hepatitis B and its enrollment in the NHIS programme on the floor of Parliament, Mr Afenyo-Markin said: “HIV patients get the antiretroviral drugs free of charge. Unfortunately, Hepatitis B patients who also rely on this same medication have to buy it.
“If we do this, it will reduce morbidity and mortality in our country to the barest minimum with a strong focus on vulnerable groups within our rural areas,” he said.
Mr Afenyo-Markin, who is Member of Parliament (MP) for Effutu Constituency, noted that a survey he sponsored in 2019 in the Constituency indicated an 85 per cent prevalence rate of Hepatitis B in the Municipality, a disheartening case.
He said as of 2019, only 30.4 million people globally, representing 10.5 per cent of all people estimated to be living with Hepatitis B were aware of their infection due to the silent nature of the disease while 6.6 million representing 22 per cent of people diagnosed were on treatment.
To that end, he urged the Government to intensify public education through radio, television and print media about the causes of Hepatitis B and the mode of transmission to create more awareness.
“Mr Speaker, the Government should intensify education on the Hepatitis B virus so that those who often rely on traditional herbal treatment will desist from that since this led to escalation and often creates where a situation where the liver gets damaged and they die quicker than expected,” he said.
The MP expressed worry at how only Teaching hospitals were well equipped to manage Hepatitis B, hence affecting people outside areas who were referred and were mostly the poor declined and sought alternative treatment leading to complications and death.
He said: “As the leading cause of liver cancer worldwide, viral Hepatitis B elimination can greatly reduce the rate of liver cancer deaths, if only we can find and treat the millions of people who are unaware, they are living with the condition.
“Mr Speaker, I conclude by saying that with World Hepatitis B Day approaching somewhere in July, Government should make testing, vaccination and treatment accessible to the communities to save lives. This can be done through decentralization of the services which will make the implementation of a community-based Hepatitis B more effective,” he said.
He, therefore, called on colleague MPs, corporate institutions, chiefs, opinion leaders, religious leaders, and other stakeholders to actively engage in public education to create more awareness, which would lead to voluntary testing, with those who test negative quickly taking the vaccine which was very cheap and would not cost more than GH¢100 adding once they can vaccinate with three shots, they are safe from getting the infection.
Contributing to the statement, Dr Zanetor Agyeman-Rawlings, MP for Klottey Korle, advocated affordability of medicine to people who were less endowed to purchase it.
She also called for policy clarity on data on people who were at high who were highly exposed and could not afford services.
World Hepatitis Day (WHD) is recognised annually on July 28th, the birthday of Dr Baruch Blumberg (1925–2011).
Dr Blumberg discovered the hepatitis B virus in 1967, and two years later he developed the first hepatitis B vaccine.
The day is an opportunity to step up national and international efforts on Hepatitis and encourage actions and engagement by individuals.