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| Africa North |
| The Great Egyptian Hepatitis Disaster |
| 2009-05-07 |
| It is a health crisis of alarming proportions. Up to nine million Egyptians have been exposed to hepatitis C, and tens of thousands will die each year unless they receive a liver transplant. Health authorities are taking steps to stop the spread of the blood-borne virus, but must also contend with higher liver failure mortality rates as the disease advances in those infected decades ago. "The prevalence of hepatitis C is not growing, but the impact of an outbreak in the 1960s and 70s is appearing now as a clinical outcome," says Dr. Mostafa Kamal Mohamed, professor of community medicine at Ain Shams University in Cairo. "Liver disease has become the number one healthcare priority for the country and will continue to be so for the next decade. About 70 percent of all liver deaths here are due to hepatitis C." Egypt has the highest prevalence of hepatitis C in the world, the legacy of a well-intended health campaign that went horribly wrong. In the 1960s, the government turned to modern medicine in the hope of eradicating bilharzia, a water-borne parasite that has plagued Egyptian farmers since the dawn of time. In a tragic irony, the tartar-emetic injections given to Egyptians living in rural areas cured their bilharzia, but spread another deadly disease among the population, the hepatitis C virus (HCV). "At that time, bilharzia treatment was administered intravenously," recalls Dr. Refaat Kamel, a prominent surgeon and specialist in tropical diseases. "There were no disposable syringes, so once the needle got infected, the disease spread quickly from one person to another." |
| Posted by:Anonymoose |
| #14 Actually, the liver has a tremendous power of regeneration. Often, a healthy person donates a lobe of his liver to a child recipient, or one cadaver liver is sectioned and transplanted to more than one recipient. More extreme measures are possible, though the surgery is difficult. |
| Posted by: Eric Jablow 2009-05-07 22:29 |
| #13 "doc says you're gonna die" /old snakebite joke |
| Posted by: Frank G 2009-05-07 20:38 |
| #12 I don't suppose it would be good form to mention that there is some good research about using swine livers as a stop gap measure until a suitable donor liver is found. You don't suppose........... Oh never mind. |
| Posted by: James Carville 2009-05-07 20:07 |
| #11 #9 Perhaps, if the kidney converted before the transplant... harhahrhahrha |
| Posted by: Classer 2009-05-07 19:14 |
| #10 "that wasn't Bush's fault either" Nonsense, FR - everything bad is Bush's fault. Get with the program. ;-p |
| Posted by: Barbara Skolaut 2009-05-07 19:09 |
| #9 Perhaps, if the kidney converted before the transplant... Reaction explored here. |
| Posted by: swksvolFF 2009-05-07 17:10 |
| #8 If transgenic livers or hearts are ever developed, it will mostly be from pigs. I can imagine the contortions muslims will go through to justify implanting living pig parts inside them, or the hush-hush tones of rich muslims who have had porcine heart valve implants. |
| Posted by: ed 2009-05-07 15:01 |
| #7 I'm sure they can cure this if they just kill all the pigs. Oh, I should clarify, by "pigs" I don't mean Jews, but those animals that go "oink". |
| Posted by: AuburnTom 2009-05-07 14:47 |
| #6 "we've come to get your liver donation." "but i'm still using it!" "you signed the organ donor card, didn't you?" "huh? uh, well, yes..." "right, then, -- may we have your liver?" |
| Posted by: Querent 2009-05-07 14:16 |
| #5 tens of thousands will die each year unless they receive a liver transplant. Thing about livers is everybody needs one. For tens of thousands to NOT die by getting a transplant other tens of thousands HAD TO die to provide the livers. And the 'donors' have to be at least somewhat healthy. Now, AQ could provide donors through their program of decapitation.... |
| Posted by: Glenmore 2009-05-07 13:14 |
| #4 Sigh... Hep C is a b*tch. At the time of the infections, little was known about it (it was called Non-A Non-B Hepatitis.) The liver transplants won't hold out very long- it doesn't cure the disease. They would probably be better off super-dosing the remaining victims with interferon+ribavirin (much cheaper too) but it often makes the patient very sick (think AIDS cocktail.) A lot of people in Europe got C from improperly screened blood transfusions... that wasn't Bush's fault either. |
| Posted by: Free Radical 2009-05-07 07:04 |
| #3 "Tragic irony"? How about at least cleaning the syringes with alcohol and flame sterilizing the needle? Is it me or would this help? |
| Posted by: gromky 2009-05-07 04:53 |
| #2 It goes without saying. |
| Posted by: gorb 2009-05-07 04:06 |
| #1 I'm sure it's all you-know-who's fault. |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2009-05-07 03:43 |