Riyadh - Muhammad Al-Ghanami, a consultant in liver diseases, denied that the prevalence of hepatitis B category "B" had reached 10% among the Kingdom''s population. This denial comes in the wake of what was reported by some media outlets that hepatitis B virus in the Kingdom has reached 10%. Dr. Ahmed Al-Omair, a consultant liver disease and head of the Saudi Society of Liver Diseases and Transplantation, confirmed to Al-Riyadh that the published information is not based on a specialized statistical record dealing with liver diseases, pointing out that if the percentage was correct, then two million citizens would be injured and exposed to risks and complications.
He indicated that the vaccine given to newborns 18 years ago, God willing, managed to control the spread of the disease among the youth group, but he did not confirm a certain percentage of the level of infection with viral hepatitis B category because there were no accurate sources available to this information, indicating that the old studies that were made It was conducted in the late eighties, in the light of which the decision was made to administer the vaccine to all infants. It talked about chronic infection rates varying according to the difference in prevalence between regions, with a rate of 8.3% among adults and 6.7% among children across the Kingdom.
Dr. Ahmed Al-Omair stated that the false information may have been based on old statistical studies, explaining that the Liver Association confirms the low incidence of disease for those under the age of 18 years, according to the information available from the Ministry of Health, and it expects that the rates will also have decreased among adults. For different health sectors to apply other spread control steps, such as inspecting all donated blood units and a broad commitment to using one time for all medical intervention tools.
In a previous interview with the President of the Saudi Society for Liver Diseases and Transplantation, Dr. Ahmed Al-Omair, Al-Riyadh had indicated the association’s demands for the importance of having an accurate and comprehensive national record of liver patients in the Kingdom, which is expected to information on disease prevalence and infection rates periodically and reliably. Launching a broad treatment program for people with chronic viral infections of category "B" or "C" in the same context, which is supposed to provide various treatment steps in the early stages of disease and avoid complications that arise if the treatment program is neglected, and to benefit from the successes achieved by the Ministry to control With the spread of the disease among young people with the vaccine program, until you reach similar successes with the treatment program necessary to control the disease in other age stages.
