Hepatitis “B” and “C” viruses are detected in more than 40,000 Uzbeks

So far this year, 696,147 people have been screened for hepatitis B, and 696,045 people for hepatitis C. Among them, 22,307 were diagnosed with hepatitis "B," and 22,157 with hepatitis "C." Maftuna Saidova, the head of the information service of the Sanitary-Epidemiological Peace and Public Health Committee, provided this information today, December 5, during a briefing at AOKA.

"According to the data from the World Hepatitis Alliance in 2021, approximately 1.5 million people die each year due to hepatitis "B" and "C" viruses. This surpasses the mortality rates of HIV/AIDS and malaria," stated Maftuna Saidova.

She mentioned that more than 65 family and multidisciplinary central polyclinics in Uzbekistan have organized free screenings to detect this disease.

It is planned to allocate 47 billion soums from the state budget for the purchase of anti-hepatitis "C" drugs.

Additionally, an agreement was reached through negotiations with the Arab Republic of Egypt to send 800,000 packages of "Daklotasvir" and "Sofosbuvir" drugs as free aid.

Currently, 60,000 packs of "Daclatasvir" and 7,000 packs of "Sofosbuvir" drugs are distributed free of charge to patients diagnosed with hepatitis "C."

"35.25 billion soums will be saved due to the purchase of medicines as free aid by the Arab Republic of Egypt. These funds will be used for screening, and the aim is to reach 1 million screenings per year. Such systematic work is ongoing," Saidova stated.

It is worth reminding that in the "Uzbekistan - 2030" strategy, approved by the Presidential Decree, patients infected with viral hepatitis "C" type and children with oncological diseases in need of hematopoietic bone marrow stem cell transplantation are fully funded by the state budget. The treatment will commence at the expense of these allocated funds.