Since 2018, the World Hepatitis Alliance has promoted World Hepatitis Day — July 28 — with the hashtag #FindingTheMissingMillions. A global advocacy and awareness campaign, it was dedicated to the millions of people around the world living with undiagnosed hepatitis B or C. Now that the three-year campaign has reached its conclusion, for 2021 there is a new theme: Hepatitis Can’t Wait.
The pandemic prompted many government leaders and health organizations around the world to backburner efforts for issues, like viral hepatitis, that they considered less urgent—as if such crises would not be exacerbated by the pandemic and did not merit being addressed in tandem.
“With a life being lost every 30 seconds globally to viral hepatitis, even in the COVID-19 crisis we can’t wait for action,” Cary James, the World Hepatitis Alliance’s chief executive officer, told Filter.