‘HEPATITIS B IN SCOTLAND’ HAS BEEN DEVELOPED TO INCREASE PARTICIPANTS’ UNDERSTANDING AND AWARENESS OF THE ILLNESS
The e-learning course is also available to access through the Scottish Drugs Forum (SDF) Training website, which has been adapted to continue to provide people flexible training opportunities throughout the pandemic.
Meanwhile, a new digital media campaign, which has been launched in Scotland to mark World Hepatitis Day on 28 July, aims to raise awareness of new hepatitis C treatments.
As with many vital treatment services, the COVID-19 lockdown has severely disrupted access to hepatitis treatment while also putting off course the Scottish Government’s ambitious target of eliminating hepatitis C by 2024.
For World Hepatitis Day, therefore, Hepatitis Scotland has also launched a national digital campaign - #BeHepCFree - that aims to re- engage in care those, who haven’t accessed specialist treatment, and to encourage others who may have been at risk to come forward.
The campaign highlights the recent transformation of hepatitis C treatment, signalled
by a wave of new, tablet-only, extremely effective medicines with minimal side effects.
Until the last few years, people’s hepatitis C treatment experience included weekly injections for a year, with side effects that mimic the symptoms of the flu, and at the end of the year there was less than a one in two chance of being cured! Many people with the illness didn’t complete, or didn’t even start treatment. Some of those who had been at risk of the infection didn’t even get tested because they didn’t want to face treatment. This has all changed with the new treatments now on offer to anyone with hepatitis C in Scotland.
Using recorded interviews with people who were successfully treated in two animated video short films, the #BeHepCFree campaign will target Facebook and Youtube audiences.
‘COVID has interrupted Scotland’s progression towards eliminating hepatitis C as a public health issue by 2024,’ Leon Wylie continued. ‘Services are only now starting to come back online and
therefore it has become even more important for those affected by chronic hepatitis C to come forward for treatment. The new drugs are transformative, meaning that it is now incredibly easy to be treated and cured. We believe it is vital that people come forward to access testing and care.’
For more information, visit
BeHepCFree.org. What’s the difference?
Hepatitis C can only be transmitted through blood to blood contact with an infected person. Only in extremely rare cases can it be passed on through bodily fluids (there have been some reports of men co-infected with HIV passing on hepatitis C during sex). In Scotland the most common means of transmission of hepatitis C is sharing equipment used for injecting drug use.
There is no vaccine for hepatitis C, but there are now very effective treatments, which can cure up to 80 per cent of those infected, depending on the strain of the virus they have.
Hepatitis B can be transmitted through blood to blood contact, but is more commonly transmitted through bodily fluids - particularly during sex. In Scotland the most common means of transmission is mother to child transmission during birth. All pregnant mothers in Scotland are now screened for hepatitis B because, if the mother is infected, the child must receive the hepatitis B vaccine at birth to protect against a lifelong hepatitis B infection.
There is a vaccine for hepatitis which can prevent a person from becoming infected, but there is - at present – no medical cure.
IT IS VITAL THAT PEOPLE COME FORWARD TO ACCESS TESTING AND CARE
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