Itoero Posted December 7, 2018 Share Posted December 7, 2018 (edited) Nuru was prepared for the worst when she went to get screened for HIV eight years ago. After caring for her mother in Uganda, who died as a result of the virus, Nuru moved to the United Kingdom to study, and decided to take her health into her own hands. “I was ready to be told I had HIV,” she says. “I felt, ‘That’s okay. I’ve looked up to my mother’.” What she didn’t expect was to be diagnosed with a different viral infection altogether: hepatitis B. “The way the health worker delivered it to me, it was like, ‘It’s worse than HIV’. I was confused, I was suicidal,” says Nuru (who asked that her real name not be used for this article). “I just didn’t understand what it was because no one ever talks about hep B — they talk about HIV. That’s well researched, it’s well talked about, well documented. It’s all over the television. But hep B is not.” The hepatitis B virus (HBV), which spreads through blood and bodily fluids and invades liver cells, is thought to kill just under 1 million people every year around the world, mostly from cancer or scarring (cirrhosis) of the liver. HBV is less likely to be fatal than HIV, and many people who carry the virus don’t have symptoms. But because more than 250 million people live with chronic HBV infections, more than 7 times the number with HIV, its global death toll now rivals that of the more-feared virus. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-07592-7 Edited December 7, 2018 by Itoero Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StringJunky Posted December 7, 2018 Share Posted December 7, 2018 42 minutes ago, Itoero said: Nuru was prepared for the worst when she went to get screened for HIV eight years ago. After caring for her mother in Uganda, who died as a result of the virus, Nuru moved to the United Kingdom to study, and decided to take her health into her own hands. “I was ready to be told I had HIV,” she says. “I felt, ‘That’s okay. I’ve looked up to my mother’.” What she didn’t expect was to be diagnosed with a different viral infection altogether: hepatitis B. “The way the health worker delivered it to me, it was like, ‘It’s worse than HIV’. I was confused, I was suicidal,” says Nuru (who asked that her real name not be used for this article). “I just didn’t understand what it was because no one ever talks about hep B — they talk about HIV. That’s well researched, it’s well talked about, well documented. It’s all over the television. But hep B is not.” The hepatitis B virus (HBV), which spreads through blood and bodily fluids and invades liver cells, is thought to kill just under 1 million people every year around the world, mostly from cancer or scarring (cirrhosis) of the liver. HBV is less likely to be fatal than HIV, and many people who carry the virus don’t have symptoms. But because more than 250 million people live with chronic HBV infections, more than 7 times the number with HIV, its global death toll now rivals that of the more-feared virus. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-07592-7 There needs to to be a concerted vaccination programme for it in Africa. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Itoero Posted December 18, 2018 Author Share Posted December 18, 2018 On 7/12/2018 at 4:20 PM, StringJunky said: There needs to to be a concerted vaccination programme for it in Africa. Vaccine candidates for poor nations are going to waste. Promising immunizations for diseases that affect mostly people in low- and middle-income countries need help getting to market, urge David C. Kaslow and colleagues.https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-07758-3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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