Poor funding responsible for hepatitis deaths in Nigeria -Group

The Executive Director of the Viral Hepatitis Association of Nigeria,
an affiliate of the World Hepatitis Alliance, Dr. Olusegun David, has
identified lack of funding as the major hindrance to awareness and
treatment of the viral hepatitis disease.

He made this known in an interview with our correspondent during the
week in preparation for the commemoration of the World Hepatitis Day
which comes up on July 28, 2014.

David stated that the government seemed not to be helping in the
provision of funds to let Nigerians know about the disease and seek
for the treatment before they succumb to it.

He said, "Awareness requires funding. Training the professionals
requires money to be spent. There is a lot to be done to get the
information across to the people to know about the disease. A lot of
funds have to be put in place before such could be done.

"The government seems not to be talking about the disease, which has
about 10-20 million Nigerian carriers; everybody seems to show much
concentration on HIV/AIDS, Malaria, Tuberculosis, etc. Hepatitis is
killing many people too, and the government needs to do something
urgent about it by providing enough funds to raise the level of
awareness and for the treatment of the people who are currently living
with it."

Similarly, a Public Health Officer, Olanrewaju Okunlola, said that
what the government needed to do to forestall future deaths as a
result of the disease was to devote more resources for awareness and
treatment of infected Nigerians.

She said, "In fact, Hepatitis kills at the same rate as HIV/AIDS. If
people are informed about the disease and go for the treatment on
time, this would lead to a reduction in the number of deaths recorded
by the disease. Presently, Hepatitis is a killer disease and if we
don't attend to the issue now, many carriers of the disease would have
chronic liver problems."

According to the World Hepatitis Alliance, the viral hepatitis kills
three people in a minute, with over 26,000 Nigerian carriers killed as
of 2010.

-Punch