Along with so many ‘world days’ populating our calendar, many people remain sceptical about the impact of global awareness dates and as of now, hepatitis symptoms. We are glad to say that World hepatitis Day annually proves the sceptics wrong.

28th July 2022 marks the 15th World Hepatitis Day: a day that remains the single most important date in the year to give people living with viral hepatitis a voice, raise awareness, and advocate for the elimination of the disease.

In 15 short years, World Hepatitis Day has evolved and exceeded all expectations. From the very first community-led World Hepatitis Day in 2008, which was largely supported by patient groups from around 47 countries to today where millions of supporters in almost every county in the World celebrate the day with awareness activities, testing drives, and countless other events. World Hepatitis Day has become a global day of action that unites policymakers, medical professionals, and patients to raise awareness of the huge burden of viral hepatitis and to influence real change in disease prevention and access to eating, treatment, and care.

World Hepatitis Day is immensely significant as the virus has been neglected for so long. Despite killing a huge populace, viral hepatitis has been almost overlooked by the government and completely misunderstood by the general public.

Since the last couple of years, a real turning point for this epidemic and previously unimaginable progress has been made; the voice of the community grew stronger with over 250 hepatitis patient groups making up the World Hepatitis Alliance, and approximately 194 governments have committed to a global strategy which is to eliminate hepatitis by 2030.

If it was not for the fact that WHD and hepatitis symptoms were initially ignored by so many governments, the World Hepatitis Alliance may not have been able to mobilize the community in the way that it did. Thanks to the government’s failure to acknowledge the day, patients’ advocates were instead pushed for its official recognition through a World Health Assembly resolution in 2010.

Not only did this make World Hepatitis Day one of just four disease-specific global awareness days officially endorsed by the World Health Organization – and so committed governments around the world to mark the day – the 2010 resolution also gave a clear message that far greater attention was needed. Motivated by the need for international recognition to ensure what has an impact, this initial spark of advocacy has since inspired further action and policy change.

Over the last 15 years, the day has gone from strength to strength. That’s to the dedication of thousands of individuals and organizations, over 1,000 activities took place in 176 countries in 2016. The level of online engagement seen last year was incredible with over 360 million people reached. The concept of elimination in particular gathered real momentum in 20016 and WHD2016 was used to engage stakeholders around this goal and to launch NOhep, the first global movement to eliminate viral hepatitis by 2030.

Awareness campaigns offer an opportunity for all stakeholders to be part of eliminating a group of diseases that are the leading cause of liver problems in the world. Every activity that addresses viral hepatitis is a step towards eliminating it. Yet thus elimination of this global epidemic is not just a public health goal – it is an individual goal for millions of men, women, and children across the world. Every single person could be affected by this virus thus we all have a part to play to achieve elimination.

However you plan to celebrate World Hepatitis Day this year, change is brought about thanks to the actions across the globe, no matter how big or small, the world coming together to boost the profile of viral hepatitis. Continued collaboration will be key to achieving our elimination goal and World Hepatitis Day reminds us of the most significant annual opportunity for us to do so.

Some of the hepatitis symptoms are listed below so that more awareness is spread:

• Fatigue
• Flu-like symptoms
• Dark urine
• Pale stool
• Abdominal pain
• Loss of appetite
• Unexplained weight loss
• Yellow skin and eyes, which may be a sign of jaundice.

ZAFA GROUP OF PHARMACEUTICALS insists the readers be aware and spread awareness on this very important day. It salutes all the NGOs and organizations working tremendously hard to promote the awareness programs and tirelessly working towards the goal to eliminate hepatitis. To learn more about such programs, visit our website https://zafa.com.pk/ now.