Vice President Venkaiah Naidu and Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla chair event to sensitise Parliamentarians on Hepatitis
Vice President exhorts all parliamentarians to play a Leading
Role for a hepatitis-free India, and make it a people’s movement
Union Health Minister suggests everyone to work in a mission mode to eradicate
hepatitis by adopting three pronged approach of Prevention, Testing and
Treatment
Vice President
of India and Chairman of Rajya Sabha Venkaiah Naidu along with Speaker of Lok
Sabha Om Birla chaired an event today to sensitise the parliamentarians on
Hepatitis on the occasion of World Hepatitis Day 2022. Mansukh Mandaviya, Union
Minister for Health and Family Welfare apprised the audience on the situation
of Hepatitis in the country and explained the need to rapidly eliminate the
disease.
This year's theme is: "Bringing hepatitis care
closer to you", aimed to simplify hepatitis care and to take hepatitis care
to primary health care centres and community locations, and to take hepatitis
care beyond the confines of major hospitals.
The event was jointly organized by Parliament of India
and Institute of Liver & Biliary Sciences at the Parliamentary Research and
Training Institute for Democracies (PRIDE).
Thanking the parliamentarians for their enthusiastic
participation, Vice President expressed his deep concern over the issue of
hepatitis and called upon all parliamentarians to take the cause of a
hepatitis-free India to their constituencies and spread the message in
vernacular languages for more impact and to change the social fabric.
Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, calling for a collective
action against Hepatitis, emphasized the crucial role played by the Parliament
in disseminating the message in a country full of diversity. He said that it is
responsibility of the people's representatives to ensure that their
constituencies have constant identification and monitoring of the Hepatitis
patients, look after the needs of patients during and post treatment.
Union Health Minister Dr Mansukh Mandaviya noted, “Prime
Minister Shri Narendra Modi ji played a huge role in moulding thinking of the
country towards making health a ‘comprehensive’ subject by linking it with
development.” Giving examples of programmes like TB elimination, he said that
all these programmes ultimately improve the social determinants of health
thereby improving the living standards of India’s population.
Underlining the challenges in the diagnosis of hepatitis
in early stages, Union Health Minister highlighted the importance of early
detection for timely treatment. “Our COVID management learning has demonstrated
that Test, Trace and Treat strategy worked well. Most people remain
unaware of hepatitis at the early stages, as either they have no symptoms or
there are such symptoms on the basis of which it is difficult to diagnose the
disease. To allay this, and to reduce the burden of disease among the
community, we need to screen high-risk groups including family members of
hepatitis B patients and those who have received or are receiving repeated
blood transfusions, are on dialysis, are infected with HIV or who are immune
are compromised, he noted.
Accentuating the New Global Health Sector Strategies for
the period 2022-2030 that aim to eliminate HIV, viral hepatitis and sexually
transmitted infections by 2030, Dr Mandaviya highlighted that the number of
deaths from Hepatitis B in a day is more than the number of deaths from HIV in
a year. “Therefore, over the years, Viral Hepatitis B and C have become a
global health problem and significant cause of death. Around 4000 people die of
viral hepatitis in a day in the world. About 40 million people in India are
suffering from Hepatitis B and C infection”, he added.
Dr Mansukh Mandaviya exhorted states to launch Jan
Abhiyaan with log bhagidari (people’s participation) to enthuse and engage
citizens and communities to ensure a Hepatitis Free India. He
also suggested everyone to work in a mission mode to eradicate hepatitis
and make it a Jan Andolan by adopting three-pronged approach of
Prevention, Testing and Treatment.
All parliamentarians also took pledge to not discriminate
people living with Hepatitis and contribute in empowering people against
Hepatitis during the awareness session.
Harivansh Narayan Singh, Deputy Chairman, Rajya Sabha,
Vinay Kumar Saxena, Lt Governor, Delhi, Utpal Kumar Singh, Secretary General,
Lok Sabha, Dr SK Sarin, Vice Chancellor, Institute of Liver and Biliary
Sciences, Prasenjit Singh, Additional Secretary, Lok Sabha Secretariat were
also present.