Implementation period: December 2012 – March 2013 (pilot project)
Healthy Communities – HBV (Jaundice type B) tests and treatment is focused on patients from excluded communities with Jaundice type B. Testing and treatment is performed in six locations.
This particular type of jaundice is very dangerous and widespread around the world. The infection is transmitted by infected body fluids, and through unprotected sex, non-vaccinated blood from medical interventions, through injecting drugs, tattooing, and during childbirth from mother to fetus. This type of jaundice can reach a critical stage, with the patient never fully recovering and the virus remaining in the body. Patients with chronic forms of the disease are at risk of developing liver cirrhosis and liver cancer. They are also the source of infection for those around them – particularly family members.
The implementation of the project consists of three phases:
• Information campaign
• Testing
• Treatment
• Testing
• Treatment
Our aim is to cure as many HBV positive patients as possible.
Testing is currently being conducted in 6 localities. To date around a third (200 out of 600) of those who expressed an interest have already been tested. Suspicions of increased occurrences of Jaundice in the settlements proved to be well founded; dozens of people had developed antibodies at the time of the first screening, signifying that they had come into contact with the virus.
