General News

Recent reductions in the costs of diagnosing and treating viral hepatitis should be an incentive for countries to scale up investments in disease elimination.

That’s the view of the World Health Organization which is calling on all countries to take advantage of the lower costs and match investments to eliminate the disease.

Ahead of World Hepatitis Day, marked this Sunday, WHO’s hepatitis team leader, Dr. Marc Bulterys spoke spoke to UN News’s Samuel Mungai, and explained prevention measures that some countries are taking to protect against hepatitis related diseases.

The sense that winning the battle against AIDS is a done-deal, has been slowing progress on reducing new HIV infections, and in reality, it’s “far from over”, according to the chief of the UN agency dedicated to tackling the virus.

And what is more, Gunilla Carlsson, the acting Executive Director of UNAIDS, says that if we forget about people at risk, such as intravenous drug users, men who have sex with men and sex workers, “we will not solve the problem with the rise of new HIV infections”.