Hepatitis - Part 1

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This is SCIENCE IN THE NEWS in VOA Special English. I’m Steve Ember. And I’m Barbara Klein. This week, we will tell about six diseases of the liver. The diseases come from six different viruses. Doctors have one name for all of them: hepatitis.
 

1. The liver is in the upper right part of the stomach. This dark, red organ is big. It weighs more than one kilogram. And, it has a big job. The liver helps clean the blood and fight infection. It also helps break down food and store energy until the body needs it.

2. Hepatitis destroys liver cells. Some kinds of hepatitis are much more serious than others. Which kind a person has can only be known from tests for antibodies in the blood.

3. Antibodies are special proteins that the body's natural defenses against disease produce in answer to a threat. Identify the antibody and you identify the threat.  Hepatitis A is usually spread through human waste in water or food. It is in the same group of viruses as those that cause the disease polio.

4. The hepatitis A virus causes high body temperature, pain and weakness. It causes problems with the stomach and intestines, making it difficult to eat or break down food. Also, the skin of a person with hepatitis may become yellow. This is a sign that the liver is not operating normally.

5. To help prevent the spread of hepatitis A, people should wash their hands after they use the restroom or change a baby's diaper. People should also wash their hands before they eat or prepare food. Hepatitis A can spread quickly to hundreds or thousands of people. But the virus is deadly in less than one percent of cases. Many people infected with the virus never even get sick. But those who do usually recover within two months.

6. The World Health Organization says hepatitis A is often found in Africa, Asia and Central and South America. People who have had hepatitis A cannot get it again. There is a vaccine to prevent hepatitis A. America's Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says the vaccine is the best way to protect against the disease.

7. The World Health Organization says as many as two billion people are infected with the hepatitis B virus. More than three hundred fifty million of those infected have lifelong infections. WHO officials say an estimated six hundred thousand people die each year as a result of hepatitis B.

8. The virus is in the same group as the herpes and smallpox viruses. Hepatitis B vaccines have been given since the nineteen eighties. The W-H-O says the vaccine is ninety-five percent effective in preventing the development of infection. Hepatitis B spreads when blood from an infected person enters the body of another person. An infected mother can infect her baby. The virus can also spread through sexual activity, and if people share injection devices.

9. Blood products from an infected person can spread hepatitis B. People also can get infected if they share personal-care products that might have blood on them. Some examples are toothbrushes andsharp hair-cutting instruments.

10. Worldwide, most hepatitis B infections are found in children. Young children are the ones most likely to develop a chronic or lifelong infection. The risk of such an infection is small for children older than four years.

11. About ninety percent of babies infected with hepatitis B during the first year develop chronic infections. Such persons are at high risk of death from liver disease or liver cancer. The hepatitis B vaccine is considered to be the first medicine that can protect people against liver cancer.

12. Hepatitis C is even more dangerous. Like hepatitis B, it spreads when blood from an infected person enters someone who is not infected. The hepatitis C virus belongs to the same group of viruses as yellow fever and West Nile virus. Most people living with hepatitis C develop chronic infections, often without any signs. They are at high risk for liver disease and liver cancer.

13. The World Health Organization says about one hundred seventy million people are infected with hepatitis C. That is three percent of the population of the world! The WHO. also says that as many as four million more become infected each year. It warns that those infected may develop diseases of the liver, including liver cancer. The WHO says the highest rates of infection are in Africa, Asia, and Central and South America.

14. The hepatitis C virus was first observed in nineteen seventy-four. But it was not officially recognized as a new kind of hepatitis until nineteen eighty-nine. Scientists have been working to develop a vaccine and other treatments.