Committee members and colleagues;
Ladies and gentlemen:
Welcome to the Regional Office for the Western Pacific.
I appreciate the time and care you have taken to be here to help guide our efforts to combat hepatitis in the Region.
This group has experience in every aspect of hepatitis and the many associated infections and diseases. Many of you see the hardship caused by hepatitis on an almost daily basis.
In the Western Pacific Region, deaths from viral hepatitis equal those caused by tuberculosis. Hepatitis kills three to four times more people than HIV/AIDS in our Region.
Globally, viral hepatitis is the eighth leading cause of mortality — mainly from chronic hepatitis B and hepatitis C and subsequent liver cirrhosis and liver cancer. Hepatitis kills an estimated 1.4 million people a year worldwide.
Your work is especially important because the global burden of hepatitis is centred in Asia.
An estimated 900 people die every day due to the consequences of hepatitis B in the Western Pacific Region.
Our Region bears nearly half the global burden of chronic hepatitis C infections. We account for more than half the world’s deaths from hepatitis C-associated liver cancer.
While these numbers may sound discouraging, I would like to remind you of the great successes we have had here in the Region — most recently with hepatitis B immunization.
Thirty of 37 countries and areas in our Region have achieved the milestone of less than 2% prevalence of hepatitis B among 5 year olds by 2012. Twelve countries have already reached the less than 1% goal.
Those figures translate into one million fewer hepatitis B infections and 300 000 fewer deaths in these cohorts of children.
Still, millions of people in the Region continue to live with hepatitis B and C – and co-infections — and at risk for cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma.
For this reason, I want to focus on the recent gains we have seen in treatment. The rapid advances in antiviral technology, in particular, have reshaped the future for people with hepatitis B and C:
For hepatitis B, we have effective medicines with tenofovir and entecavir. These can stop the disease progress and the subsequent risk of cancer.
WHO recently released guidelines for the prevention, care and treatment of hepatitis B, which recommended expanded use of these two medicines. We are thankful for the assistance many of you provided in the development of these guidelines.
Developments in recent years in hepatitis C have also been revolutionary. New all-oral medications have been shown to cure chronic hepatitis C infection in more than 98% of cases — after only three months of treatment!
It seems that every other week we hear about another combination of direct acting antivirals that require less time to achieve a near universal cure.
Unfortunately, these medicines often do not reach the people who need them in the Region.
While some hepatitis B medications are already widely available for HIV treatment, regulatory and funding challenges mean these are not affordable to many living with hepatitis B.
For hepatitis C, the extremely high price of these new drugs puts them out-of-reach for all but the richest people.
Just as the world eventually responded to the HIV crisis by making drugs more affordable — which saved countless lives — we must do the same for viral hepatitis.
The World Health Assembly last May called on Member States to develop and implement national strategies for preventing, diagnosing, and treating viral hepatitis based on the local epidemiological context.
The Health Assembly directed WHO to provide the necessary technical support to enable Member States to develop these comprehensive strategies and actions with time-bound goals.
The regional hepatitis programme takes this mandate a step further. We are helping Member States move beyond immunization to address viral hepatitis in a comprehensive manner, including screening and treatment.
The draft Regional Hepatitis Action Plan provides concrete steps to guide Member States in addressing the national burden of viral hepatitis, with a focus on chronic hepatitis B and C.
The action plan also details WHO support of Member States’ efforts in developing comprehensive national hepatitis strategies that build on the success of hepatitis B immunization programme to achieve agreed upon targets.
When I started as Regional Director, I could not have imagined the progress we would have achieved in combatting viral hepatitis and increasing the Region's health security.
Thankfully we now have the tools to respond effectively and address the burden of viral hepatitis, especially hepatitis B and C in our Region.
Going forward, I have full confidence and trust in your ability to guide our efforts to address the silent epidemic of hepatitis.
I wish you a productive meeting and await your recommendations.
Thank you.