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B Aware campaign

Government Urged to Combat Growing Threat of Hepatitis B

A campaign supported by CLDF has been launched (25th October 2006) to improve the diagnosis, care and prevention of hepatitis B.

The B Aware Campaign is calling on the Government to take action to address what is rapidly becoming a major public health problem in the UK. 

The Department of Health estimates that around 180,000 people – 0.3 percent of the population - are chronically infected with hepatitis B. Hepatitis B can lead to serious liver disease, including cirrhosis and liver cancer. The disease has a major impact on quality of life, and is increasingly becoming a serious financial burden on the NHS. It is currently estimated to cost the NHS anything from £26 million to £380 million annually to manage hepatitis B.

However, to date the Government has done little to assess and monitor the real scale of the problem, or to tackle it.  According to its own figures, only £81,000 has been spent on research into the condition since 2001, which represents just 45p per person infected.  

One of the main public health concerns identified by the B Aware Campaign organisations is a lack of public knowledge about the disease. A specially-commissioned survey by YouGov of over 2,000 adults has revealed that 35 percent were not aware of the condition, and 81 percent didn’t realise that it could lead to liver cancer. Over half of respondents did not know that hepatitis B can be prevented through vaccination;  40 percent were unaware that hepatitis B can be medically treated; and 56 percent didn’t realise that the hepatitis B virus was more infectious than HIV.

B Aware is calling on the Government to produce an action plan to prevent and manage hepatitis B. This should include:

• Raising awareness of the impact caused by hepatitis B and what can be done to prevent, diagnose and treat it
• Improving surveillance to help track people chronically infected, including those who haven’t been diagnosed
• Increasing screening and testing facilities 
• Introducing routine immunisation for all babies and adolescents
• Improving access to support facilities, including innovative treatments; and training more specialist medical staff     

The B Aware Campaign is supported by Children's Liver Disease Foundation, the Association of Nurses in Substance Abuse, British Liver Trust,  Hepatitis B Foundation UK and Mainliners.

For further information on the campaign please click on the the links below to open the relevant documents:

Why is CLDF supporting the B Aware campaign?

B Aware Campaign press release

B Aware Campaign background information sheet

B Aware Campaign objectives

B Aware Campaign survey results