DILI, 03 august 2022 (TATOLI) – The Ministry of Health (MoH), together with the World Health Organization (WHO) launched Timor-Leste’s Hepatitis National Strategic Plan (HNSP) to combat and eradicate hepatitis in the country.
Minister of Health, Odete Maria Freitas Belo said the launching of the HNSP is crucial to improving hepatitis care in the country.
“The HNSP will improve Hepatitis Services and bring the hepatitis treatment closer to the communities in the rural areas through Timor-Leste’s Family Health Program and Community-Integrated Health Care Program,” Minister Belo made comments during the launching ceremony of the HNSP, at Hotel Timor, in Dili, on tuesday.
She said the patients would be screened and tested when they are in the hospitals: “If they are tested positive, then they would be transported to the Regional Hospitals to have treatment.”
“Today, we celebrate World Hepatitis Day (WHD) in Timor-Leste to raise the public awareness of hepatitis,” she said.
At the same place, WHO Representative to Timor-Leste, Arvind Mathur says that the WHO Timor-Leste remains completely committed to accelerating efforts towards elimination, by strengthening primary health care and more specialized care for those patients who need it.
“There are few diseases that we can realistically dream of eliminating, but hepatitis is one of them- Let’s work together to make this Dream true,” said Mathur.
Mathur reiterated that it’s important to bring Hepatitis Care closer to people: “To bring Hepatitis care closer to the community and eliminate viral hepatitis as a public health problem, the actions cannot and must not wait.”
He added WHO will closely collaborate with MoH to combat and eradicate hepatitis in the country to ensure no one is left behind, saying, therefore, WHO will continue to support MoH in the prevention of infection among newborns, stop the transmission of mother to child, ensure safe injection, safe blood transfusion, and safe dental procedures, expand access to testing and treatment.
“Testing and treatment must be made universally available across all levels of the health system- closer to people,” Mathur emphasized.
Around 3000 people die every day or every 30 seconds someone dies to hepatitis-related diseases such as liver failure, cirrhosis, and cancer. This number is higher than HIV and comparable to TB.
Hepatitis is a preventable and treatable disease yet, more than 350 million people globally live with viral hepatitis
In Southeast Asia Region, 60 million with Hepatitis B, and about 10.5 million live with Chronic Hepatitis C.
“We have the test, treatment, and prevention tools to prevent infection and save lives yet only 10% know that they have Hepatitis and about 80% of patients don’t have access to or afford care,” Mathur said.
Data is somewhat scanty in Timor-Leste as different prevalence studies indicate a 6.5% prevalence of Hepatitis B in the general population while amongst health workers it was found to be 4 %.
Limited or non-availability of data itself poses a major challenge to the control of Hepatitis B in addition to other programmatic issues such as lack of routine surveillance, limited advocacy, and programmatic actions, limited funds, or absence of dedicated funds for the Hepatitis Program in the National Budget.
Journalist: Filomeno Martins
Editor: Nelia Borges
