What are the findings in the Global Hepatitis Report 2024? Why does India have such a high disease load of hepatitis B and C? Is the increasing prevalence of non-viral forms of the disease, like alcoholic liver disease and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, adding to the burden?
Pregnant women wait for Hepatitis B surface antigen screening test at a Chennai hospital.
The story so far: India accounted for 11.6% of the total viral hepatitis disease burden globally in 2022, making it the country with the second highest disease load after China, according to the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Global Hepatitis Report 2024 released recently. Bangladesh, China, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines, the Russian Federation and Vietnam, collectively shoulder nearly two-thirds of the global burden of hepatitis B and C.
As per the report, the disease is the second leading infectious cause of death globally — with 1.3 million deaths per year, the same as tuberculosis, a top infectious killer. New data from 187 countries show that the estimated number of deaths from viral hepatitis increased from 1.1 million in 2019 to 1.3 million in 2022. Of these, 83% were caused by hepatitis B, and 17% by hepatitis C.
Every day, there are 3,500 people dying globally due to hepatitis B and C infections. Half the burden of chronic hepatitis B and C infections is among people aged 30-54 years old, with 12% among children under 18 years of age. Men account for 58% of all cases.
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