A large number of Taiwanese hepatitis B and C carriers are oblivious to their condition, the Liver Disease Prevention and Treatment Research Foundation said yesterday, and this ignorance could carry a heavy price, as the likelihood of a hepatitis sufferer developing liver cancer rises a hundredfold over the years.
The foundation has been testing people for hepatitis B and C since 1996.
Yesterday, it released the aggregate data gathered during the course of its work to raise awareness of the link between hepatitis and cancer, giving a glimpse of the prevalence of what it has dubbed "public-health enemy No. 1."
Hepatitis B and C are viruses that attack the liver, lead to cirrhosis and ultimately liver cancer in some. Until it was surpassed by lung cancer, liver cancer was the nation's deadliest cancer.
According to the foundation's screening of 160,000 Taiwanese above the age of 18 between 1996 and 2005, 17.3 percent of the population is afflicted with hepatitis B, making the disease more than 40 times more prevalent in Taiwan than the in US. Hepatitis C, which is less common in Taiwan and more common in the US, was found in 4.4 percent of the population, more than three times the US rate.
Sheu Jin-chuan (許金川), executive director of the foundation, estimated that more than 90 percent of Taiwanese adults become infected with hepatitis B at some point in their lives, although in many the virus in the body falls below detectable levels.
"With interferon therapy we can depress the level of virus present in patients to minimize the risk of cirrhosis and ultimately hepato-cellular cancer," Sheu said. "Does that mean recovery? No. The virus could still cause mischief in the liver years after it seemed to have disappeared."
"Hepatitis sufferers need to be made aware that they are at an increased risk of liver cancer because there are no nerves inside the liver, meaning that by the time a doctor detects the cancer, it's already way too late," he said.
Since 1975, hepatitis B vaccines have been mandatory for all babies born in Taiwan.
"There is a failure rate for the vaccine, which accounts for why 1.4 percent of children in Taiwan are hepatitis B carriers despite being vaccinated," Sheu said.
Sheu recommended that foreign residents in Taiwan who have not been vaccinated against hepatitis B do so if tests reveal they have not yet been infected.
"Even going to the hairdresser or the dentist could present a risk," Sheu said.
The main means of transmission for the virus include mother-to-child transmission, unclean needles and unprotected sex.
Sun Juei-low (宋瑞樓), professor emeritus at National Taiwan University, has fought hepatitis for 55 years. He attributes Taiwan's widespread hepatitis rates to flawed medical practices such as inadequate sterilization of acupuncture needles.
"I would like to retire, but the virus will not let me," he said.
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