By Emmanuel Adeleke
The Chief Medical Director (CMD) of University College Hospital (UCH), Ibadan, Professor Jesse Otegbayo, has disclosed that over 20 million Nigerians are living with Hepatitis B and C, adding that 80% of those who have the disease do not know.
Otegbayo made the disclosure while delivering the 548th inaugural lecture of University of Ibadan (UI), held at Trenchard Hall of the institution, on Thursday.
The CMD, who delivered a lecture titled, ‘The human workhorse and microbial afflictions: Hepatitis B, its fatal sting, and the tragic trajectory,’ said the liver cancer caused by Hepatitis B is very deadly.
Otegbayo noted that the liver is the workhorse or powerhouse of the body because it plays crucial roles in carbohydrate, fat, protein, vitamins, and minerals metabolism, including drug detoxification of ammonia into urea, regulation of blood clotting, immunity, and many others, stressing that it is known to perform over five hundred functions in the body.
“Hepatitis B virus is a viral infection. It is an organism that can’t be seen with naked eyes and it has effect on the heart, in that it can cause inflammation and it can cause what is called liver cirrhosis and liver cancer. The kind of liver cancer that it causes is very deadly. Most of our patients that we see with that cancer usually die within six weeks and three months after the diagnosis because they present late.
“The transmissible form of HBV is found in all body fluids, such as blood, semen, saliva, sweat, urine, and bile, among others. The most effective means of transmission, however, is blood and blood products. Other channels are sexual contacts, saliva, and organ transplantation. Because the organism is highly infectious, only a small quantity of fluid is required to transmit the infection, and in fact, HBV is about a hundred times as infectious as the dreaded HIV virus and could survive for as long as six weeks on a dry surface. It can also resist a temperature of boiling water for one hour and still retain its infectivity.
“Generally, transmission of HBV could be vertical or horizontal. Vertical transmission is from mother to child, while horizontal transmission is from person to person. In Africa, HBV is significantly transmitted horizontally during childhood because of contact with exudates from open sores and contact sports. In Ibadan, among blood donors at the University College Hospital, the most common risk factors, and the source of infection through bloodletting were scarification and indiscriminate injections.
“There are individuals who are at a higher risk of acquiring HBV infection; these are health workers especially gastroenterologists, contacts of infected persons, men who have sex with men (MSM), infants of infected mothers, multiple sexual partners, and those with sexually transmitted infections, among others,” he said.
Otegbayo called for the designation of regional specialised centres of excellence for infectious and liver diseases and making the costs of healthcare affordable.
“The European Union is saying that by the year 2050, the incidence of cancer that we are seeing now will double, that currently about 8 million people die annually because of this cancer and that may increase to 13.2 million. So we need to take measures like immunization, screening and so on serious.
“If we put all that in place and also go for medical check up to see whether we have this virus. If we are negative, we take the vaccine and if we have it, then we see a liver specialist to take care of us. If we put all these measures in place, the incidence of liver cancer will go down and it can actually be eradicated,” he said.
He said a vigorous pursuit of these measures, would ensure the eclipse of liver cancer and other maladies as a scourge to the health of the people and improvement in life expectancy
The Professor of Medicine, Gastroenterology and Hepatology also called on Federal Government to address the nation’s healthcare system, institute universal healthcare, and put in measures to control the nation’s population which is estimated to reach 401 million by 2050.
Otegbayo said that population explosion is imminent in Nigeria, and it will overwhelm and overstretch the healthcare system, thereby worsening the health indices.
The CMD, who stressed that healthcare costs are expensive anywhere in the world, said the managers of the nation’s healthcare system deserve a certain level of financial and training empowerment to be able to function optimally.
