The government also launched the
Hepatitis B vaccine programme in Maharashtra after the successful trial
of the vaccine in other Indian states including Goa, Gujarat and
Karnataka among a few others.
Speaking at the launch, union Health
Minister J.P. Nadda said “Society is the main element that can help us
in tackling a dreaded disease like Hepatitis. We will ensure that with
the end of hepatitis, all others preventable diseases see an end.”
The country is estimated to have around 40 million HBV carriers.
Of the 2.6 crore (26 million) infants
born anually in India, approximately 10 lakh (one million) run a life
time risk of developing chronic HBV infections.
Stating that the government has included
the HBV vaccine in the national universal immunisation programme, Nadda
said the country will add four more vaccines to the existing
Indradhanush vaccine programme that already has a vaccine combination of
seven diseases.
Goodwill ambassador of HBV’s media
campaign and megastar Amitabh Bachhan, on the occasion, said “India
should take less time to eradicate hepatitis in comparison to what it
took to eradicate polio which was a result of 10 years efforts of the
government and the Unicef.”
“There has to be a continuity in the
work of the campaign and the field workers towards awareness,” said
Bachchan, who was once afflicted with HBV.
Unicef representative to India Louis Georges Arsenault said “Hepatitis destroys the liver over the time and leads to death.
“Majority of the cases go undiagnosed as
it has no symptoms, which is a major problem as the chances of
transmission from a pregnant mother to her child remains 90 percent,” he
added.
There are over 780,000 deaths annually due to acute or chronic consequences of hepatitis B.
