A health official in Maridi County of Western Equatoria state has raised alarm on the high rate of hepatitis infections amongst the youths there.
The Maridi hospital's acting medical director, Dr. Lilly Denima, said they diagnose at least seven to 10 people weekly with both Hepatitis B and C.
“We receive these cases of Hepatitis daily, both B and C, now in the hospital and we don’t have enough testing kits for Hepatitis. The few we have, we keep them to screen people who want to donate blood, but in most cases, patients test from the clinics in the town,” she said.
Dr. Lilly urged the youths in Maridi to vaccinate against what she called the killer disease.
“I want to send my message to the community. HIV has treatment, people take drugs and live long with HIV but Hepatitis has no treatment. Today many clinic owners give wrong information to the community about Hepatitis,” she said. “There are no drugs for Hepatitis, what they are giving you is not drugs for Hepatitis. The WHO and CDC have not approved any drugs for Hepatitis, what is there is the vaccine. People should be careful with Hepatitis. It is silently killing us.”
Hepatitis is a vaccine-preventable liver infection caused by the Hepatitis B virus and is spread when blood, semen, or body fluids from a person infected with the virus enters the body of someone who is not infected.