Gert van der Hoek
In Memoriam - Editor, Senior Moderator
Experts Rally To Get European Commitment To Halting The Hepatitis B And C Epidemic
17 Oct 2010
In an unprecedented move to address the public health threat that viral hepatitis represents across the European Union (EU), leading physicians, scientists and patient groups demanded policy action from EU officials at today's Summit Conference on Hepatitis B and C. New research highlights how Member States are failing to consistently implement prevention, screening, surveillance and early treatment programmes that would help to halt the epidemic.[ii],[iii]
At least 23 million people are estimated to be living with chronic hepatitis B and C, but data available show that this does not reflect the true burden of this life-threatening health issue.[iv] The long-term consequences of viral hepatitis, if left untreated, are severe and potentially fatal. Liver cancer related deaths, which are attributed to chronic infection with viral hepatitis B or C in up to 85 percent of the cases,[v] have increased significantly over the past two decades in Europe.[vi]
read more
ECDC report : Surveillance and prevention of hepatitis B and C in Europe
This report collected and analysed data from 29 EU/EEA countries in regard to hepatitis B and C surveillance and
prevention programmes. Although all countries have systems in place that collect data at the national level, these
systems differ in the way they apply case definitions and make use of collected data.
As viral hepatitis is a frequent and often underreported disease, this report tries to summarise the latest available
prevalence data at EU level. Harmonising the available surveillance data in order to improve comparability of data
among countries will be a major challenge in the next few years.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ECDC report: Hepatitis B and C in the EU neighbourhood:
prevalence, burden of disease and screening policies
The goal of this literature review is to obtain insight into HBV and HCV prevalence, burden of disease, and national
screening policies and their effectiveness in EU countries.
17 Oct 2010
In an unprecedented move to address the public health threat that viral hepatitis represents across the European Union (EU), leading physicians, scientists and patient groups demanded policy action from EU officials at today's Summit Conference on Hepatitis B and C. New research highlights how Member States are failing to consistently implement prevention, screening, surveillance and early treatment programmes that would help to halt the epidemic.[ii],[iii]
At least 23 million people are estimated to be living with chronic hepatitis B and C, but data available show that this does not reflect the true burden of this life-threatening health issue.[iv] The long-term consequences of viral hepatitis, if left untreated, are severe and potentially fatal. Liver cancer related deaths, which are attributed to chronic infection with viral hepatitis B or C in up to 85 percent of the cases,[v] have increased significantly over the past two decades in Europe.[vi]
read more
ECDC report : Surveillance and prevention of hepatitis B and C in Europe
This report collected and analysed data from 29 EU/EEA countries in regard to hepatitis B and C surveillance and
prevention programmes. Although all countries have systems in place that collect data at the national level, these
systems differ in the way they apply case definitions and make use of collected data.
As viral hepatitis is a frequent and often underreported disease, this report tries to summarise the latest available
prevalence data at EU level. Harmonising the available surveillance data in order to improve comparability of data
among countries will be a major challenge in the next few years.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ECDC report: Hepatitis B and C in the EU neighbourhood:
prevalence, burden of disease and screening policies
The goal of this literature review is to obtain insight into HBV and HCV prevalence, burden of disease, and national
screening policies and their effectiveness in EU countries.