Brussels: Population screening especially in risk groups is not
conducted systematically in most EU Member States, making it the weakest spot
of hepatitis care policies in comparison to prevention and treatment. This is
one of the key results of the "Euro Hepatitis Care Index", a comparison
of the performance of hepatitis care in 27 EU Member States, Switzerland,
Norway and Croatia, which has been published on 6 November in Brussels in the
framework of a conference supported by the Cypriot EU Presidency.
Consequently a large proportion of infections will be
detected late, leading to secondary damage and making it more likely that
patients unknowingly pass on the virus. This finding confirms observations made
by patient's associations and practitioners.
Tatjana Reic, President of the European Liver Patients
Association (ELPA) commented, "Even rich countries like Germany do not
perform well in screening. We have the doctors, nurses and facilities in
Europe, many are excellent, but they do not treat as many patients as they
could because there is no effective and systematic screening to detect patients
early. Unrecognised hepatitis leads to severe damage of the liver and cancer
which makes an infection with hepatitis a potentially life-threatening
condition."
The Euro Hepatitis Care Index has been put together by
Swedish think tank Health Consumer Powerhouse (HCP) on behalf of and funded by
ELPA. First place is held by France, followed by Slovenia and Germany.
"The French position is partly due to national strategic
coordination," said Tatjana Reic.
He asserted, "France is the only country in Europe
which has developed a national plan to tackle all aspects of hepatitis care.
Central coordination helps to exploit the full potential of otherwise isolated
efforts by practitioners, patient groups and other stakeholders. The EU
Commission should take these findings as an opportunity to encourage Member
States to implement national hepatitis strategies and push the exchange of best
practices, as it successfully does in other in other fields."
Hepatitis means inflammation of the liver, most commonly
caused by a viral infection. Across Europe 23 million citizens are chronically
infected with the hepatitis virus, 125.000 die annually. Most patients are
unaware of their infection.