The following is taken from Rotary Williamstown's "The Timeball" (their Bulletin) this month. You can download and read the entire excellent presentation at: Rotary_Williamstown_18_May_2020_End_Hep_Now.pdf
'Kevin:
Thank you for the opportunity. Martin and Julie are going to give you a thumbnail sketch of what hepatitis is about, what advancements have been in dealing with it, and a life experience. But I’ll give you the background through the Rotary Club of Melbourne.
Rotary worldwide has done a wonderful job of eliminating polio and malaria. We adopted a national project in Australia for the centenary - End Trachoma in 2020 - but our Club decided to adopt a national project for Hepatitis Awareness. I want to let you know why we got involved and what we undertook to do and that was to spread awareness throughout District 9800 by presenting to many clubs as possible.
We were doing well since the launch on 3 July last year. However the bushfire tragedy in January and now COVID19 lockdown have slowed things down. Our Club is rolling out the project out throughout District 9800. Next year we will approach another District to see if we can spread our wings further and then every Rotarian will know more about hepatitis and take away the stigma which is generally associated with the word, hepatitis. (Will need to go to R100 centenary meeting tonight linking up with Rotary Club of Sydney.
Four Centurion Clubs – Wellington, Auckland, Sydney and Melbourne - came together five years ago to launch an
immunisation project in the Pacific with aid of UNICEF to immunise 100,000 children in nine Pacific nations).
Martin:
Thank you for the opportunity to present to you. I’m a local in Williamstown so it’s great to be here. I’m Health Promotions Program Manager for Hepatitis Victoria. Every state and territory in Australia have a hepatitis organisation. There’s been a huge ongoing silent epidemic with a huge amount of shame and stigma associated with it. Hep Vic is working in conjunction with Rotary Club of Melbourne.
The word “hepatitis” means inflammation of the liver, which is the body’s normal response to infection and toxic stimuli. Viral hepatitis is the most common form of liver inflammation. It can be caused by any of the hepatitis viruses identified as A, B C, D and E.
Nearly half a million people in Australia, or 2% of the population, live with chronic viral hepatitis (hepatitis B and C). This is over 17 times the number of people living with HIV/AIDS and more than double the number of people living with epilepsy. 15,000 Australians are diagnosed with viral hepatitis each year - around the same number diagnosed with breast cancer.
Nearly 1000 Australians die each year from hepatitis B and C related causes. Four Victorians die every week as a consequence of viral hepatitis. Liver cancer largely caused by chronic viral hepatitis infection is the fastest increasing cause of cancer death in the country." Read more on the link above.
