web_banner_englishOver the last twelve years, World Hepatitis Day has been marked worldwide and in the Republic of Srpska as well.

World Hepatitis Day – July 28th, 2015 is marked as a part of the global campaign conducted by World Health Organization (WHO) with the aim of raising the awareness about viral hepatitides and emphasizing the importance of timely detection and treatment of hepatitis.

Medical personnel of the Clinic of Infectious Diseases of the University Hospital Clinical Centre Banja Luka organizes costless, voluntary and anonymous testing for hepatitides. Accordingly, they will mark July 28th – World Hepatitis Day. Costless testing and counseling can be provided to all interested citizens in the Counseling Centre of the Clinic of infectious Diseases (Paprikovac location) in the period from July 27th to July 31st, from 9:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m.

The theme for this year’s World Hepatitis Day is “Prevent hepatitis. Act now”. World Health Organization suggests drawing up the strategy i.e. action plan for viral hepatitides for the period 2016-2021 in all countries, with the aim of reducing the number of people suffering from this disease. Viral hepatitis (diseases known as hepatitides A, B, C, D and E) attacks hundreds of millions of people worldwide, causing acute and chronic liver diseases. Hepatitis is also a cause of death due to cirrhosis of the liver or liver cancer. Providing insufficient information on disease, risks, modes of transmission and on prevention of hepatitis B and hepatitis C results in the fact that infected people are not often aware that they are carriers of the virus. Accordingly, there is a greater possibility of spreading the infection.

Four hundred million people worldwide live with hepatitis B or hepatitis Candmost of them do not even know that they are infected. On an annual basis, 1.4 million people die due to the consequences, and many more become infected with hepatitis every year. New European guidelines and recommendations for the treatment of HCV (April, 2015) resulted in important changes in treatment and opened the door to the new, more successful therapies that increased the chances of being cured up to 100%

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