#WorldHepatitisDay #FindTheMissingMillions

This Saturday July 28, 2018 marks World Hepatitis Day, a day created in 2008 to help raise awareness of the global burden of viral hepatitis and to influence real change. It occurs on the same date every year in honour of the birthday of Nobel Laureate Baruch Samuel Blumberg who discovered the hepatitis B virus.

In 2016, a global commitment to eliminate hepatitis B and C was put in place, however only a few countries are on track to meet this target. This is largely due to the fact that more than 290 million people are not aware they are living with viral hepatitis. Without finding these millions of people and linking them to care, the opportunity to eliminate viral hepatitis could be missed.

The focus of this World Hepatitis Day is to launch a 3-year campaign to “Find the Missing Millions” and help eliminate viral hepatitis by 2030. The objectives of this campaign are to:

• Raise awareness of the importance of increasing diagnosis and linkage to care

• Encourage people to get tested

• Underscore the need for national testing policies

• Educate and inform wider audiences about viral hepatitis (prevention, treatment and testing)

For more information about World Hepatitis Day and how you can get involved in the quest to find the missing millions visit: http://www.worldhepatitisalliance.org/missing-millions/