Taiwan has already achieved the WHO’s hepatitis C elimination targets for 2030 and is working toward eliminating hepatitis B, Minister of Health and Welfare Chiu Tai-yuan (邱泰源) said yesterday.
The minister made the remarks while speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the Liver Disease Prevention and Treatment Research Foundation’s 31st anniversary event in Taipei.
Taiwan historically had widespread cases of hepatitis — especially hepatitis B — and before a nationwide vaccination program was launched in 1984, the prevalence was estimated to be 15 to 20 percent of the general population, and more than 90 percent of the adult population had been infected.
Photo: Chiu Chih-jou, Taipei Times
The prevalence of the hepatitis C virus was also estimated to be about 4 percent a decade ago, higher than the world average.
The Ministry of Health and Welfare in 1984 implemented the world’s first universal hepatitis B vaccination program for newborns, and since 2011, it has been offering a one-time free hepatitis B and C infection screening for adults aged 45 to 79, expanding the eligibility to people who are 39 to 79 starting this month.
Taiwan has already achieved the WHO’s hepatitis C elimination targets for 2030, and a ministry task force is writing up a report, which is to be completed before the end of October and to be submitted to the WHO’s Western Pacific Region, Chiu said.
The WHO’s targets for hepatitis C elimination by 2030 include 90 percent fewer new cases, 80 percent of people with chronic infection receiving treatment, and a 65 percent reduction in infection-related deaths compared with 2015 levels.
As the screening program has helped to detect many people with hepatitis B or C over the past few years, its eligibility was expanded so that more people could get screened and receive treatment as early as possible, Chiu said.
The ministry’s next goal is to eliminate hepatitis B, he added.
Meanwhile, reporters asked the minister about a social media post by a healthcare worker who said that the nurse-to-patient ratio of the day shift at the emergency department of the ministry’s Shuang Ho Hospital in New Taipei City could become as high as 1:13 — significantly higher than the standard of 1:6 for day shifts.
The health ministry would investigate the matter immediately, Chiu said.
The ministry has been making efforts to improve healthcare professionals’ working environment to retain doctors and nurses in healthcare facilities, especially in emergency and critical care departments, so non-compliance with the nurse-to-patient standard is not allowed, he added.
Additional reporting by CNA
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