Daily Trust investigations report continues:
A
high number of potential candidates seeking to join the armed forces but are
rejected because of the infection is raising serious concern about the
disease.
“People
don’t present early, most people rush to traditional or normal conventional
paracetamol before they come to us, by then the situation is already fulminant.
Fulminant means the liver has been damaged so much within a short time,” a
consultant gastroenterologist and pathologist at the Aminu Kano Teaching
Hospital (AKTH), Dr Yusuf Maisuna Abdulkadir, said.
The
doctor added that “sometimes you see them vomiting, bleeding or having jaundice
or becoming unconscious.”
Minister
of Health, Professor Isaac Adewole said about 20 million Nigerians have
hepatitis. He said that though many people may appear healthy physically, they
could be walking around with the without knowing they were carriers.
He
said most times, the disease does not manifest until it was too late, adding
that it could cause chronic liver disease, liver cancer and death without any
presentation of weighty symptoms.
Dr.
Pantong Mark Davwar, a gastroenterologist, and hepatologist at the Jos
University Teaching Hospital (JUTH) said hepatitis is four times bigger than
the burden of HIV but unfortunately given less attention.
What
to know about the disease
According
to Dr Ganiyat Oyeleke, a consultant hepatologist and gastroenterologist at the
Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH), Idi Araba, there are five types of
viral hepatitis: A, B, C, D, and E.
She
said hepatitis A and E are transmitted by contaminated food and water and that
some of the symptoms include: fever, diarrhoea, abdominal pain and yellow eyes.
She said the symptoms go on their own and don’t stay in the body to cause
further damage.
Hepatitis
B, C and D on the other hand, she said stay longer than six months in the body
and they grow into chronic form.
Dr
Davwar said hepatitis E is not common in Nigeria, and that “hepatitis D cannot
exist on its own, and only occurs in cases of hepatitis B.”
Patients experiences
Ibrahim
Khalifa was ignorant about hepatitis until he was diagnosed with it during a
medical examination into the Nigerian Air Force in 2015. Khalifa from Plateau
State said he had undergone all the necessary exams and training at the
Nigerian Air Force base in Kaduna but a simple medical exam had changed his
life and shattered his dream of joining the air force.
“They
told me that I needed to go and treat myself and then apply when next they were
recruiting. Even after I got the necessary treatment, I applied again in 2017
and didn’t get in, I am going to keep trying,” he said.
Twenty-year-old
Favour who came from Kaduna State to Abuja when she secured a job as a domestic
staff lost her job as a result of hepatitis. Her employer told her that she
couldn’t risk her working in her home because she could infect her children and
the rest of the family with hepatitis.
On
his part, Istifanus Mafeng said he tested positive to hepatitis B when he
offered to donate blood to his then ill father in 2012. Mafeng said he was
immediately treated in the hospital. He was however shocked when he tested
positive this year during an awareness campaign on hepatitis.
Explaining
Mafeng’s dilemma, Dr Davwar, said “hepatitis C is curable but hepatitis B is
not curable but treatable. So, for B, if you take the right medication
consistently it can prevent you from having liver cirrhosis and liver cancer
but for it to disappear from the body, it is unlikely with the current drugs
that are available.”
Prevalence
and causes
Dr
Oyeleke said Hepatitis B and C were the most common types of hepatitis in
Nigeria, and that they could cause liver damage which results in liver
cancer.
She
said Lagos has a low prevalence rate compared to some other places. “There is
about 6 to 7% of people living with the disease in Lagos,” she said.
The
average prevalence rate of hepatitis B virus in Nigeria is about 13% while that
of hepatitis C virus is about 2%, said another consultant physician
and gastroenterologist, at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH), Idi
Araba, Dr Emuobor Odeghe.
She
said there was no reliable data for the other types of hepatitis viruses
(Hepatitis A and E).
Nweke
Prince, a medical laboratory scientist, and hepatologist said results of the
tests he had conducted within the last three months in Abuja and other cities
showed that hepatitis rate was high in the country.
He
said two to three people test positive for hepatitis, adding that hepatitis B
was the most prevalent in northern part of the country, while hepatitis C was
very prevalent in Kwara State.
He
said some cultural practices such as using unsterilized knives and other sharp
objects for barbing hair and for pedicure and manicure in the north predisposes
people to hepatitis B.
He
said people with hepatitis were usually disqualified from they are because the
army required to do strenuous activities, and the liver of people who have
hepatitis couldn’t take it.
Data
obtained from the Jos University Teaching Hospital (JUTH) showed that 17
persons were admitted for hepatitis B and one person for C between the months
of July and August.
The
data which was obtained from the Health Record officer, Mrs Nana Kuden of the
Internal Medicine and Health Record Department indicated that 10 persons were
admitted with hepatitis B in July, eight of which were male and nine of which
were between the ages of 36 -61 with the last below 20 years.
Dr
Abdulkadir said 20% of Kano state’s total population suffers from hepatitis B,
saying the burden is much on the male population than in females.
He
said on average three out of every ten men have the virus while 1 in 10 women
is positive with the disease.
Dr
Abdulkadir attributed the burden of the disease on male population to their
early exposure to blood and other body fluids either through some cultural
practices or wounds sustained from childhood play.
In
Benue State, at least 586,000 people are believed to be carriers of Hepatitis
B in accordance with 2016 projection of over four million population in the
state, Professor Godwin Achinge has said.
Achinge,
a professor of Medicine and Consultant Gastroenterologist as well as Head of
Infectious Diseases Centre at the Benue State University Teaching Hospital
(BSUTH), said people who are infected with the virus become ill at the prime of
their age such that those in their late 20s, early 30s, and early 40s come down
with liver diseases caused by hepatitis.
A
laboratory technician, Blessing Michael, at the Makurdi office of the Viral
Hepatitis Association, said Hepatitis B and C are prevalent in the state,
citing a 2016 report which ranked Taraba State at 34% and Benue 35% as being
the highest around the northern states of the country.
In
November 2013, the then Benue State Governor Gabriel Suswam said a report
written to him by the Nigerian Army indicated that at least five out of every
ten persons in the state are infected with the deadly disease.
Dr
Adamu Alhassan Umar, State coordinator, and Principal Medical Officer, National
Blood Transfusion Service, Yobe State said the centre, which covers
institutions and communities in Yobe, Bauchi and Gombe has within the last 12
months collected 991 units of blood, a total of 113 units were found to be
positive for the hepatitis B infection and 13 positive for hepatitis
C.
He
said when juxtaposed with the total percentage of all transfusion transmissible
infections which stands at 16% (this include other infections such as
HIV and syphilis), the hepatitis viral positivity is high in individuals in the
region.
Prevention
and treatment
Professor
Achinge advised people to prevent the disease by adhering to safe health
practices and to vaccinate themselves, especially, where one of the members of
a family test positive for the virus.
Dr
Odeghe said hepatitis C virus could be avoided by simple, regular hand
washing. He
said people should avoid self-medication, and use of herbal/traditional drugs
as some of them cause hepatitis.
Dr
Oyeleke said for the disease to be reduced, every adult must be tested for
hepatitis. She said those whose results are negative, should get the vaccine,
while those who tested positive, should get treated. She
recommended that every child must be vaccinated during the routine immunization
after birth.
Dr Biodun Ogungbo, a medical expert with Spine Fixed in Abuja said the vaccine for hepatitis B is available and relatively cheap. It cost about ₦10,000 for three doses, she said.
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