Hepatitis B, A Disease Worse than HIV virus
Everyone is scared of one disease HIV, in fact it is regarded as A disease without cure in Yoruba Language and people are so scared of the disease that they do not want to take the test to know their status but while people are scared of HIV, there is a disease that can be very deadly compared toir HIV if not checked properly.
Symptoms can go from passing out dark urine, Jaundiced skin, abdominal pain and yellow eyes, fever, loss of appetite and can be gotten from a razor cut. The disease is Hepatitis B and it can be very deadly compared to HIV if not properly managed but with proper precaution, one can still live a good life.
This disease is a Viral infection that attacks the liver majorly causing both Acute and Chronic hepatitis B. This disease can be asymptomatic in some people because their liver does a good job of clearing it up but some can be symptomatic which can either be acute hepatitis B or chronic Hepatitis B.
I was teaching some pregnant women today at the hospital about Hepatitis B, and one woman asked a very obvious question which was how do we contract it, and I told her that it is contracted just the same way HIV is contracted. These can be through infected body fluids, blood, vaginal fluid, semen, and saliva. This means that people could get it through cut from razors, sex, blood transfusion, needles, and it can be transmitted from mother to child especially during childbirth. Before you start to say Tomisin (@thomisin) said you can get Hepatitis B from almost everything, let me say it clear that you cannot get it from coughing, sneezing sharing of clothes or handshake.
When a person has Hepatitis B, they start to exhibit symptoms like fever, loss of appetite, Nausea, diarrhea, feeling sick, yellowing of the yes and skin, dark urine. There can be cases where it lead to chronic liver failure since it causes inflammation of the liver and when this continues, it can lead to chronic inflammation as a result of the liver being inflamed, then tries to heal but to no avail after which it gets inflamed again and tries heal which leads to the scarring of the liver tissue which can lead to Cirrhosis of the liver or it can develop into liver cancer.
If you go to the hospital, there are vaccines in the hospital and Hepatitis B also have a vaccine. This vaccine comes in three doses that can be taken by both children and adult. In children, at birth, and 6 months, while the third dose is needed for complete and long term protection for up to 20 years or more but when a person has hepatitis, they are given antiviral agents in the hospital. I didn't say antibiotics because antibiotics is used for bacteria while antiviral agents are for virus.
My brothers and my Sisters, friends, readers and those of you skimming, let me say this very quick that Hepatitis is 20 times more contagious than HIV because the virus is very concentrated in very little amount of bodily fluid so when we are trying to prevent it, we should make sure that we are not sharing sharp objects, also do not share toothbrush. I mention this because when we brush our teeth, there are likelihood of injuring ourselves, so when we share toothbrush, we might be getting personal contact with mouth injuries and this can lead to the disease.
Reference
https://www.who.int/health-topics/hepatitis#tab=tab_1
https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/hepatitis-b
https://www.hepb.org/what-is-hepatitis-b/what-is-hepb/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK555945/
https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/medicine-and-dentistry/hepatitis-b
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2809016/
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