ALL-OUT WAR
Third Hep B summit steps up the fight against hepatitis
Armed with alliances forged at and the knowledge derived from the previous two summits, close to 300 participants in this year's third Hep B Summit stepped up their campaign against hepatitis B and "took the fight to the next level" by training their sights on prevention strategies.
The summit, held February 22 at the New World Renaissance Hotel, was attended by doctors, allied health professionals, and members of nongovernment organizations and advocacy groups.
Leading the charge, Vice President Noli de Castro, in his keynote address, called attention to the seriousness of the hepatitis-B threat, which he said, "is just as treacherous as the much-dreaded AIDS virus."
"This is an alarming situation and we need to mobilize the support of various stakeholders, such as the government, the private sector, and concerned international organizations to curb the spread of hepa B," De Castro stressed.
The World Health Organization classifies the Philippines among hepatitis-B "hot spots" where the carrier rate is more than 10 percent. Not a few of the nearly eight million Filipinos infected with hepatitis B will develop liver cancer, which as many as 7,000 Filipinos are battling today. Most liver-cancer patients only have three to five months to live after diagnosis, less than six percent survive for five years, and nobody is expected to survive for more than 10 years.
De Castro admitted that he lost two of his loved ones to diseases that might have been caused by hepatitis B. His father, he said, had died of liver cancer when De Castro was in fifth grade; his older brother, meanwhile, died of cirrhosis of the liver recently.
In his opening remarks, Dr. Ernesto Que, president of the Philippine Society of Gastroenterology (PSG), said the summit provided "a superbly advantageous position in an all-out war" against hepatitis B. He called hepatitis B a "silent epidemic" unrelenting in its virulence that should not be tackled "lying down." Said Que: "We stand as health guardians, as vigilant warriors out to wage an equally unrelenting war against every health menace that threatens the Filipino people. "Together let us win the war against hepatitis B."
Sense of urgency
Saying "our actions should be driven by a sense of urgency on the highest level," De Castro underlined three strategies in the battle against hepatitis B-promote greater awareness of the disease, implement the hepatitis-B immunization program, and generate resources to support the campaign.
With the help of information campaigns, he explained, "we can avoid getting into the terminal stage through early detection, but more importantly, there are ways to prevent the disease.... Many people diagnosed with hepatitis B were not aware that they were infected, until it was too late."
De Castro lamented that despite the passage in 1994 of Republic Act 7846, which mandates that all infants and children under eight should be immunized, "the administrative mechanisms to implement it are sorely lacking." He noted that very few hospitals and health clinics conduct screening for hepatitis B among pregnant mothers, and those that vaccinate newborns against hepatitis B are even fewer.
"Doctors and health workers know that a vaccine is available to prevent the infection from causing more damage to the body," he said. "Sadly, the rest of our people do not know, or worse, do not care."
In pushing for prevention as the primary weapon, De Castro endorsed a proposal to integrate hepatitis-B screening and vaccination as part of the predeparture processing for overseas Filipino workers (OFWs). "Let this be our way of assuring foreign institutions that hire Filipino labor that our OFWs are not just competent and hardworking. Our OFWs are also adequately protected against hepatitis B," De Castro said.
In the plenary sessions, Dr. Jean-Marc Olivé, WHO representative to the Philippines; Dr. Enrique Tayag, director of the Department of Health's National Epidemiology Center; Dr. Jaime Ignacio, vice president of the PSG; and Dr. Jose Sollano, immediate past president of the Asia-Pacific Association for the Study of the Liver, discussed various aspects of the disease and ways of battling it. Participants later held workshops to formulate the "battle plan."
The summit was organized by PSG, HSP, POGS, PCOM, Philippine Association for the Study of Liver Diseases, Philippine Foundation for Vaccination, and the Private School Health Officers Association. It was held in cooperation with the World Health Organization and the Department of Health, with the support of GlaxoSmithKline and MEDICAL OBSERVER. M
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