Hepatitis and Stigma
Hepatitis and Stigma

Across the world 2 billion people mainly as children innocently caught Hepatitis B, in particular from healthcare in the past using boiled syringe needles or vaccination guns. Many more caught it from childhood scrapes, from teething and simply putting their fingers in their mouths a lot and from siblings. Yet we persist in thinking these infections are from drug abuse or sexual activity, all over the world hepatitis is nothing to be ashamed of, more just part of growing up and as common and as infectious as chicken pox. The 1 in 3 people on Earth who have caught hepatitis B at some point did not do anything wrong, quite simply billions of people were innocently and silently infected without even knowing.

As Madam Jehan El Sadat so wisely put it in Egypt where Hepatitis C infected 15% of the population after one vaccination campaign in the 1970's,
"The innocence of being born, or trusting your doctor accompanies our hepatitis epidemic, not shame or stigma."
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