If the surge in measles and pertussis cases in the country isn’t enough, the World Health Organization has also sounded the alarm over the rising incidence of viral Hepatitis in the Philippines, as a WHO report placed us 9th among 10 nations that accounted for two-thirds of hepatitis cases recorded worldwide in 2022.
In its 2024 Global Hepatitis Report released this week, the WHO said the Philippines, Bangladesh, China, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Russia, and Vietnam collectively account for nearly two thirds of the “global burden” or worldwide cases of hepatitis B and C.
New data from 187 countries showed that the number of deaths from viral hepatitis increased from an estimated 1.1 million in 2019 to 1.3 million in 2022. Of these, 83 percent were caused by hepatitis B and 17 percent by hepatitis C.
About 3,500 people die worldwide per day from hepatitis viruses. It is the second biggest infectious killer, narrowly trailing tuberculosis.
In the Philippines, there were a total of 6.1 million hepatitis cases, accounting for 2 percent of worldwide infections in 2022.
Health Secretary Teodoro Herbosa attributed the high cases of hepatitis B in the country to the disease being “hyperendemic” in the Philippines, meaning any unvaccinated member of the population is highly susceptible to infection. He also noted the low vaccination coverage against the blood-borne virus, due to strict lockdowns enforced during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Herbosa said the pentavalent vaccine given to newborns for free in health centers offers protection against diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, hepatitis B, and Haemophilus influenza type B. However, many infants born during the pandemic were not given the vaccines, and the situation is compounded by the spread of anti vaccination content on social media.
As a result, the Philippines is the fourth country in the world with the most number of children receiving “zero dose” of the three shot pentavalent vaccine.
The WHO said vaccination remains a cost effective measure to prevent hepatitis B, with those immunized likely to be protected for at least 20 years.
For WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the 2024 report “paints a troubling picture.”
As the highly infectious but vaccine-preventable diseases pile up to remind us of the adage that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, we are hopefully learning our lesson in real time and recalibrating our nonchalant attitude towards vaccines. As government can only do so much as it tries to catch up, much of the onus lies on the public sector to make that happen and rebuild the herd immunity that we have unfortunately lost. Hopefully, we can win it back in a few years, instead of the decades that it took us before to achieve.*
