According to the World Health Report published by the World Health Organisation in October 1996:

"Hepatitis B has infected  2,000 million people alive today, of whom 350 million are chronically infected and therefore at risk of death from liver disease.

About  100 million are chronically and incurably infected with Hepatitis C and are similarly at risk."

In a Fact Sheet published in June 1997 WHO estimates that "a proportion in the order of 3% of the world population has been infected with HCV and that there are more than 170 million chronic carriers who are at risk of developing liver cirrhosis and/or liver cancer".

Unfortunately, unlike Hepatitis B, which has a rate of chronicisation of about 17.5% of the number of people infected, Hepatitis C turns into a chronic disease in over 70% of the people infected.

However, the 170 million figure is probably an  under-estimate,  for several reasons: either the people do not go to see a doctor (because they are asymptomatic) and therefore they are not registered as being ill, or due to the action or inaction of the authorities, as was the case in Britain, where the English authorities (unlike their Scottish counterparts) decided for a while not to inform the people who received transfusions with blood infected with Hepatitis C.

If we consider together the figures for Hepatitis B  and Hepatitis C, we reach the astronomical figure of almost 2.2 billion people infected with a serious infectious disease,  of whom  450 million already developed chronic hepatitis.

Conclusion

By any standards, to have 450 million people suffering from chronic Hepatitis B or C (9% of the world population)  means we are facing a very serious problem.  And if we consider the total number of people infected with Hepatitis B  and C  (almost 2.2 billion - nearly half the world population) then what the World Health Organisation is saying in  the World Health Report 1996: "Hepatitis is emerging as a global health issue" is by all means an understatement.

Underfunding of research seems to be the biggest hurdle in finding a cure for Hepatitis: although in terms of numbers in the whole world there are  9 times more people with chronic Hepatitis than people infected with HIV (50 million),  the research funds are disproportionately smaller for Hepatitis C.

Far from us the idea of advocating a reduction in the funds allocated for HIV... We only used the comparison in order to show that Hepatitis is almost ignored by the authorities, despite the huge spread of this illness. Our ultimate goal is to see a substantial increase in the funds allocated for the research and treatment of Hepatitis.

Unfortunately, according to the World Health Organization Report:    "Despite the emergence of some 29 new   diseases   in   the  last  20  years,    there  is  still  a lack  of national  and international  political  will  and  resources  to  develop and support the systems necessary to detect them and drop their spread."       

--ooOoo--