Sunday, April 13, 2014

Blog 9: Hepatitis C Guidelines



The article, “Africa: UN Health Agency Issues First Hepatitis C Treatment Guidelines” talks about how the United Nations World Health Organization (WHO) made the first Hepatitis C guidelines at the beginning of 2014. This new guidance focuses on improving the treatment and care for hepatitis. These guidelines also aim to make hepatitis C treatments available and more affordable because most treatments are not affordable to most people. These guidelines focus on improving the access for this treatment, which will create a demand for the treatment. They have focused on testing more people for hepatitis and the United Nations WHO states that people who are at high risk of infection should have screen testing done to establish whether there condition is chronic or not. There is also great emphasis on alcohol and patients’ affiliation with that because alcohol is closely related to liver problems, such as Hepatitis C. 

It is very important to be aware of the New Guidelines that the United Nations World Health Organization has made because Hepatitis C has killed 130-150 million people in the world, so it affects many people across the world. There are also 5 forms of Hepatitis, with Hepatitis B and C being the most severe and affecting the most amount of people. These two forms of Hepatitis can lead to cirrhosis or liver cancer, which can both be fatal. If these guidelines can create positive treatment in these patients, then we can reduce the amount of people with this disease, and therefore decrease the number of deaths around the world. Also if we can make this treatment more accessible and affordable, people around the world will be able to purchase it, which can in turn create people with healthier lives.

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