Liver diseases kill 13,000 Taiwanese each year on average, but nearly 90 percent of respondents to a recent survey by the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) thought that drinking was the main cause of such illnesses, which is a common misconception.
Released on the eve of World Hepatitis Day, the survey showed that of the 3,515 respondents, aged from 25 to 64, only 70 percent were able to accurately identify hepatitis B and and 54 percent identify hepatitis C as major causes of liver disease.
While 90 percent of those polled were aware that hepatitis B and hepatitis C required regular medical checks and could be controlled with medication, 30 percent of people with hepatitis had not sought medical advice, the telephone-based poll suggested.
Reasons cited for not seeking medical advice included the absence of distressing symptoms (80 percent) and a lack of time (8 percent), it showed.
“In Taiwan, about 13,000 people die of hepatitis, cirrhosis of the liver and liver cancer each year. Liver diseases are responsible for causing 8 percent of the nation’s annual total deaths, ahead of diabetes at 6 percent and high blood pressure at 3 percent,” HPA Director-General Chiou Shu-ti (邱淑媞) said at a news conference in Taipei yesterday.
Chiou said research shows that an abdominal ultrasound every six months could lower the risk of death from liver cancer for hepatitis B patients in the 35-to-39 age group by 37 percent.
The chances of those patients developing liver cancer could also be reduced by more than 60 percent if they received medical treatment, she added.
Chiou said people who waited until the onset of severe symptoms to see a doctor are like people living in the stone age, urging people to stay abreast of medical knowledge rather than clinging to outdated misconceptions.
The administration said that there were more than 500 medical institutions and local health centers across the country that offered hepatitis care and follow-up checks.
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