He said many laboratories in the country were inadequately resourced to handle the diagnosis of the disease, adding that, now liver biopsy was not done in any hospital in the country, and that, most laboratory test results lacked standardization. Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Health, Mr Linus Awute disclosed that the disease is responsible for 1.44 million deaths globally, a situation that also threatens Nigerian health system.

Along with creating awareness about the prevention of the diseases, the government needs to have a database that provides the number of cases, deaths, patients treated for hepatitis.

Taking a major step ahead to combat Hepatitis about whose subsistence almost 75 percent individuals are unaware in India, the country’s foremost gastroenterologists have declared that an online registry will soon get underway in order to record the growing numbers of hepatitis patients, as per media reports.

The registry will be part of the newly formed Indian National Association for Study of Liver and Current Perspective of Liver Disease constituted by the leading gastroenterologists of the country. “The aim is to keep a record of the number of people suffering from hepatitis and other liver diseases caused by it in the country”, the doctor said. This association will make this information accessible to regional hospitals and also help health centers located in remote areas to access medicines.

Noting that hepatitis was 28 times more risky than AIDS due to the absence of symptoms while it progresses in a patient, the experts said the need of registry was felt as over 75 percent of the people in India did not even know that a disease like hepatitis exists.

Addressing on the occasion, Prof Najam Khalique, Chairman, Department of Community Medicine informed that, as indicated by WHO, every year approximately 7,80,000 people die of Hepatitis B infection.

The institute further said that Punjab, Haryana, Odisha, Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh are the states among a few others, to contain the most number of affected individuals.

Hepatitis A and B he said are both vaccines preventable while hepatitis C is not, but has a new drug treatment that has shown to have a high cure rate.

Prof Haris M Khan, Medical Superintendent, JNMCH said that hepatitis B is a potentially life-threatening liver infection caused by a virus.