AS this year’s World Hepatitis Day was marked on Sunday, Chinese officials and experts highlighted the country’s significant progress in the prevention and control of hepatitis, an inflammation of the liver that causes severe liver disease and cancer. Infections from hepatitis have shown a steady decline in China thanks to enhanced monitoring and comprehensive interventions, said Chang Jile, deputy head of the National Disease Control and Prevention Administration. Data showed that the prevalence rate of hepatitis B surface antigen has fallen continuously particularly among children under 5 years old, where it has been controlled below 1%. Hepatitis B is one of the most burdensome infectious diseases globally and considered a significant public health issue in China. When people discuss hepatitis, they typically refer to the highly infectious and harmful forms of viral hepatitis. There are five main strains of the hepatitis virus, categorized as types A, B, C, D and E. The incidence rate of hepatitis A in China had dropped from 55.69 per 100,000 individuals in 1991 to 1.06 per 100,000 in 2020, and the incidence rate of hepatitis E remained relatively low, at 1.85 per 100,000 in 2021, said Li Jian, an expert with the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (China CDC). Treatment for viral hepatitis has also improved in China, with more patients now being able to receive standard treatment, said Chang. The antiviral cure rate for hepatitis C patients has exceeded 95%. The WHO’s global hepatitis elimination strategy aims to reduce new infections of viral hepatitis by 90% and deaths by 65% between 2016 and 2030, while increasing the diagnosis rate to 90% and the treatment rate to 80%. In recent years, China has adopted a prevention-first approach, integrating prevention and treatment, with the entire society working together to eliminate hepatitis, Chang said at a convention held earlier this month. The country aims for a comprehensive disease control system by 2030, with disease control and prevention institutions as the backbone, medical institutions as the support, and community-level medical and healthcare providers as the final safety net, according to a document released in December 2023. Despite this progress, elimination of hepatitis viruses remains a challenging quest for China. Approximately 75 million people are living with chronic hepatitis B in China, according to China CDC researcher Yin Zundong. Experts have called for efforts to step up diagnosis and treatment to more quickly identify those who are undiagnosed and untreated, to reducing the incidence of severe liver diseases. The diagnosis and treatment rates for hepatitis B in China fall significantly short of the WHO’s 2030 targets, according to Li. According to the latest reform resolution adopted earlier this month at the third plenary session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, efforts will be made to improve the country’s public health system, promoting collaboration and integration between hospitals and disease prevention and control institutions.(Xinhua) | 