By Liam Verster

Hepatitis Awareness

Northreach Society and provincial government mark World Hepatitis Day through awareness, grant

Jul 28, 2020 | 2:18 PM

July 28 is World Hepatitis Day, a day designed to raise awareness of the liver inflaming disease.

Hepatitis can be caused by things that are bad for the liver, such as too much alcohol or a high-fat diet. There’s also three forms of viral hepatitis, which Lindsay Loset, the Community-Based Health and STBBI Program Manager for Northreach Society in Grande Prairie, says can be remembered through a pneumonic.

“So hepatitis A: A is a vowel, vowel rhymes with bowel. So if you get fecal matter ingested inside you, you can become infected with hepatitis A. So that’s often caused by drinking unsafe drinking water, food being prepared by somebody who’s sick or maybe didn’t wash their hands after using the washroom.

“Hepatitis B: B stands for bodily fluids, so if you have infected bodily fluids of somebody entering the body of someone else it can cause transmission. It’s most often transmitted through unprotected sexual contact.

“And then hepatitis C: C stands for circulation, so it’s (spread through) blood to blood contact, so if the blood of an infected person enters the bloodstream of another person who’s uninfected, that can cause transmission. The most common way that Hepatitis C is transmitted is usually through sharing drug use equipment.”

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She adds that most people are vaccinated against Hep B when they are in Grade 5 or 6, and Hep A also has a vaccine, which is mostly given to people before they travel. However, Loset does encourage getting vaccinated, as hepatitis can be caught anywhere in the world. Hep C does not have a vaccine but can be cured through a 12 to 14 week round of medication.

Loset says that people can live a while with hepatitis without showing symptoms or knowing they’re infected.

“So sort of later on symptoms could be just not really feeling good, so general fatigue, tiredness, itchy skin, and then that jaundice or the yellowing of the skin or the whites of the eyes is the very later stages of hepatitis when the liver is having a really really hard time functioning.”

She adds that the liver is very resilient and can recover quickly if it’s caught early on, however, if left untreated, hepatitis can lead to liver cancer.

To mark World Hepatitis Day, the Alberta Government announced a $1.8-million grant to go towards supports and services that help those living with hepatitis. Northreach provides services for those individuals through referrals to a hepatitis specialist, by doing blood tests to look for Hep C, and by providing education for the public, though Loset could not confirm they would be getting any of those provincial funds.

She says it’s good to raise awareness and provide more supports, as one in five Canadians who are infected with the disease are unaware of their status.

“So getting the word out about World Hepatitis Day, and knowing your status, is something that we always encourage because once you know your status you can know what to do about it, and then you know how to keep yourself and others safe as well. Just the fact that there are people who have it and don’t know it shows that I think there needs to be more supports and more awareness of it.”

Normally, Northreach Society would be offering blood tests to determine whether someone has hepatitis C, but their office is closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Loset says people can ask their family doctor for a blood test, or send Northreach an email at info@northreach.ca or a Facebook message, and they will provide a referral and find out where to get a blood test.