Best tool in fight against hepatitis is knowledge

Best tool in fight against hepatitis is knowledge
By TONY MUMA, FOR THE SUDBURY STAR

According to Camille Lavoie, an Access AIDS Network nurse, the World Health Organization defines an epidemic as something that affects more than 1% of the population.
That's not a good thing for Sudbury, as the city carries a 1.02% hepatitis infection rate.
For the city's drug using population, the news is worse.

"Seventy percent of Sudbury's drug-using population carries hepatitis B or C," Lavoie said, adding that much of the disease diagnoses happen through the Access AIDS Network.
"That 70% of Sudbury's drug-using population can also carry HIV."

Lavoie said Sudbury's aboriginal population is at risk to hepatitis infection, as well.
Since 2007, July 28 has been recognized worldwide as World Hepatitis Day, Lavoie said.
Today, 500 million people in the world have hepatitis B or C, with 600,000 to one million infected in Canada.

Education and awareness are the artillery in the battle against hepatitis, so the Access AIDS Network partnered with the Sudbury Public Health Unit, Sudbury Action Centre for Youth, The Point -- Needle Exchange and Twisted Doll Tattoos and Piercings to educate people at the Rainbow Centre's main court.

"The point we're trying to get across is to know hepatitis and confront it," Lavoie said.
"People need to know it's a transmittable disease, especially through drug use like injecting, snorting and sharing a crack pipe."

There were activities at the event, strategically placed in the Rainbow Centre in the downtown, which Lavoie called "the epicentre of Sudbury's most at-risk."
Hepatitis trivia games with prizes, face-painting for kids and information booths were set up with free memorabilia giveaways.

The vaccine for hepatitis has been around for almost 30 years and most of Ontario's at-risk are immunized through high school vaccination programs.
Hepatits B can result in liver cancer and failure, Lavoie said, "so you'll go from having an inflamed liver to sudden liver failure."
"Hepatitis C is a bit more long term, it can work on your liver for 30 years. It's usually treatable."

Lavoie reiterated that the best weapon against hepatitis is knowledge.
"The more you know about hepatitis, the more ready you are to fight it."