Many hepatitis B patients have stopped taking their medicine because of the sluggish economy, physicians said yesterday.
But doing so would push patients one step closer to liver cancer, said Chien Rong-nan (簡榮南), chief of the Division of Hepato-Gastroenterology at Keelung’s Chang Kung Memorial Hospital’s Department of Internal Medicine.
“Liver cancer kills people, but the bad economy seems to be killing people, too,” Chien told a press conference organized by the Liver Disease Prevention and Treatment Research Foundation (肝病防治學術基金會) and Taiwan Advancing Clinical Treatment of Hepatitis B Virus Association (B肝醫療策進會台灣分會).
The two organizations yesterday released the latest statistics about Taiwanese infected with hepatitis B.
Chien said that National Health Insurance only covered the first 18 months of hepatitis B medicine and patients continuing treatment needed to pay the rest themselves.
“The cost of the medicine can become a burden for these people. Since they may not have any obvious symptoms, many simply stop going to the doctor for their prescriptions,” Chien said.
RSS