by Darasimi Oshodi
The World Hepatitis Day was recently observed. So this post is my own way of contributing to the sensitisation on Hepatitis.
The First Service in my church on Sunday is tagged ‘Empowerment Service’, where issues like entrepreneurship, academics, health, wealth, purpose, etc., are addressed. At one of our services, a medical doctor, spoke on the deadliness of Hepatitis infection and its prevalence in Nigeria. A staggering revelation the speaker made was that Hepatitis infection is deadlier than HIV and costlier to manage. Hepatitis B, he said, is incurable while Hepatitis C can be treated but can you imagine spending 30,000 naira per week on treatment for 48 consecutive weeks? That should be around 200 dollars per week. Please try to calculate what that amounts to. How many people in Nigeria can afford such a treatment? It is however surprising to know that vaccination for this disease is not supposed to be more than 1000 naira (that should be around 7 dollars) and I want to hazard a guess that many people are not aware of this. What is painful about this disease is the fact it is prevalent in Nigeria and many people are ignorant about it. How many Nigerians have died from Hepatitis infection with the death attributed to something else? Continue reading “Deadlier than HIV: Hepatitis B – by Darasimi Oshodi”
