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Tendai Rupapa recently in ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia
ZIMBABWE and other African countries are roping in technical partners to bolster their fight against viral hepatitis.

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), chronic viral hepatitis is emerging as a bigger killer than HIV/AIDS, malaria and TB combined and is responsible for more than 200 000 deaths in Africa yearly.

In Zimbabwe, the disease is claiming about 900 people annually.

Hepatitis virus is transmitted through parenteral and contact with the blood or other body fluids of an infected person.

In highly-endemic areas, it is mostly spread from mother-to-child at birth, or through horizontal transmission (exposure to infected blood), especially from an infected child to an uninfected child during the first five years of life.

Corporate Council on Africa in partnership with Gilead Sciences and Abbott, on Monday organised a breakfast meeting between the First Ladies and potential partners on the sidelines of the OAFLAD General Assembly.

Gilead Sciences and Abbot manufacture vaccines, test kits and drugs for viral hepatitis.

The meeting sought to find ways how technical partners and countries could work together in eliminating hepatitis by 2030.

First Lady Auxillia Mnangagwa, in remarks read on her behalf by Dr Bernard Madzima from the Ministry of Health and Child Care and also an OAFLAD technical advisor, highlighted Zimbabwe’s challenges in connection with viral hepatitis, progress and plans for the future.

She said the Zimbabwe Expanded Programme on Immunisation (ZEPI) had been providing Hepatitis B vaccination since 1998 as a monovalent dose. In 2012, the Hepatitis B vaccine, she said, was combined with other antigens in the form of the pentavalent vaccine.

“According to the current guidance and implementation level data, the pentavalent is administered at 6, 10 and 14 weeks with national coverage of above 90 percent. As a country, we are currently working on introducing the birth dose of Hepatitis B vaccination,” she said.

“The National Blood Service Zimbabwe (NBSZ) has been working tirelessly to preserve the quality and safety of blood that we give to patients. The blood we use for transfusion is screened for HIV, Hepatitis B and C.”

Amai Mnangagwa said last year with support from WHO, the Ministry of Health and Child Care came up with a strategic plan for elimination of viral hepatitis (2020-2023).

The strategic plan, she said, would guide the country to fight viral hepatitis.

“Given the cost of the wide range of interventions that are required to fight viral hepatitis and the current economic climate in our country, there is a huge funding gap which is limiting our efforts. As a country, we will leave no stone unturned to increase funding for all our health programmes, including viral hepatitis control,” she said.

The Health ambassador said the country’s medical laboratory capacity was limited as most district hospitals were not equipped to test Hepatitis B and C and drug resistance.

“Given that no systematic large-scale studies have been done to estimate the burden of viral hepatitis in Zimbabwe, a viral hepatitis biomarker survey will be conducted this year to estimate the prevalence of Hepatitis B and C,” she said.

The Ministry of Health, she said, planned to engage stakeholders to formulate guidelines for the treatment of viral hepatitis and a surveillance system by mid-2020.

“This will improve accountability and monitoring of our effort in the fight against the killer viral diseases. With concerted efforts, we will win in our fight against the disease,” she said.

First Lady of Niger Aissata Issoufou Mahamadou said since 2011, she had been an ambassador fighting HIV and Aids.

“I realised that if patients with HIV get hepatitis infection, they have less chances of surviving because the treatment becomes expensive. But people with HIV could live a normal life with the right treatment. Therefore, through my foundation, I have been working closely with our Ministry of Health and we even travelled to Egypt to learn from them because they had found the right treatment to control hepatitis.

“We engaged experts to train our health personnel on hepatitis. I also organised a symposium to discuss and share ideas about the disease and the initiative was welcomed by everyone,” she said.

Mrs Mahamadou appealed to the AU Commissioner for Social Affairs Madam Amira Elfadil Mohamed Elfadil to help with resources to eliminate viral hepatitis by 2030.

National Aids Council communications director Mrs Madeleine Dube, who is also an OAFLAD technical advisor commended the commitment by First Ladies to improve the welfare of their citizenry.

“We are so happy that in the engagement, even as technical advisors we could see that the First Ladies are committed to working with their communities. Without a healthy community you cannot spearhead development and over the years a lot of money has been put into health issues, especially HIV.”

She praised Amai Mnangagwa for tackling issues affecting citizens.

According to Abbott which is at the forefront of the global fight against viral hepatitis, the 2030 goal is achievable with a well-coordinated campaign that raises public awareness and institute appropriate prevention measures.