Amitabh Bachchan to lead fight against Hepatitis B

State health minister Deepak Sawant, Union minister for health J.P. Nadda, Bollywood actor Amitabh Bachchan and Unicef representative to India Louis-Georges Arsenault during the launch of the campaign against Hepatitis B at a five-star hotel on Monday —Rajesh Jadhav

After polio and tuberculosis, Amitabh Bachchan will now be seen spreading awareness about another grievous disease — Hepatitis B.

The disease has already affected some 4 crore people in India at least once in their lifetime. Mr Bachchan has himself been a Hepatitis B patient for the past 20 years. Seeing the wide response to earlier drives of polio and tuberculosis, the health ministry along with Unicef chose him as the brand ambassador for their immunisation programme under the Indradhanush initiative.

“In India, approximately 10 lakh children, on an annual basis, run the lifetime risk of developing chronic hepatitis infections, leading to life-threatening issues including liver cancer, liver failure and a possibility of premature death. It makes the liver smaller and when it reaches an advance stage, the survival rate goes down to 20 per cent,” said Dr Jayant Barve, clinical and interventional gastroenterologist.

Only 65 per cent children in India had access to all vaccines during the first year of their life. Routine Immunization (RI) in India targets 27 million infants and 30 million expecting mothers, saving 300,000 million lives each year.

During the launch of the media campaign on Hepatitis B on Monday, he said, “On the set of Coolie, I met with an accident and was given blood. But sadly, one of the bottles had Hepatitis-infected blood and reached my liver. However, because of prompt treatment, I survived and 70 per cent of my liver has been revived.”

Mr Bachchan also said that there was a stigma attached to people suffering from Hepatitis or TB and it discourages them from opting for medication. “Don’t stigmatise a person with such diseases but encourage them to take proper treatment. I would request people not to be afraid to get self-detected. It is better to get detected than carry unknown virus inside,” said Mr Bachchan.

Meanwhile, the Union health ministry will add four more vaccines, including one against rotavirus diarrhoea to the existing Indradhanush vaccine programme that already has a vaccine combination for seven diseases.

Union health minister J.P. Nadda said, “Every year, we raise the target of immunisation by 1 per cent. But this year we will achieve more than 5 per cent rise in immunisation. By the next decade, we want to bring 90 per cent of the children under the full immunisation programme. This is the world’s largest immunisation programme.”

The pentavalent vaccine that includes Hepatitis B and Haemophiusinfluenze in addition to diphtheris, pertussis and tetanus was first started as pilot project in Kerala and Tamil Nadu. After receiving successful result, it was extended to other states of Goa, Gujarat, Haryana, Karnataka, among others. The vaccine was launched in the state on Sunday at Usmanabad district.

State health minister Dr Deepak Sawant said the Nuclear Acid Test (NAT) would be made available for screening blood donations to reduce the risk of transfusion transmitted infections in the recipients. This would provide another layer of blood safety, he said.