Sri Lanka has begun screening pregnant women and administering vaccines to prevent hepatitis being passed to their newborns, health officials said as the country marked World Hepatitis Day on Tuesday.
Dr. Nimali Jayasuriya, a specialist in sexually transmitted diseases and AIDS, said blood screening of expectant mothers is now being followed by vaccination where required, in order to interrupt transmission of the virus.
World Hepatitis Day is observed on July 28 each year. Its stated objective is to accelerate the measures needed to eliminate viral hepatitis as a public health threat by 2030 — a target that calls for a sharp reduction in new infections and in hepatitis-related deaths.
Hepatitis B and C are blood-borne viruses that can be transmitted through contact with infected blood, through unprotected sexual contact, and from mother to child around the time of birth. Both can cause long-term liver damage, including cirrhosis and liver cancer, and infections frequently go undetected for years because early symptoms are mild or absent.
Mother-to-child transmission is one of the most preventable routes. International health guidance recommends routine hepatitis B testing in antenatal care, a timely birth dose of hepatitis B vaccine within 24 hours of delivery, completion of the childhood vaccination series, and antiviral treatment for mothers at higher risk of passing on the infection.
The screening and vaccination effort builds on Sri Lanka’s move towards the “triple elimination” approach, which brings testing for HIV, syphilis and hepatitis B together within routine maternity clinic care rather than treating them as separate programmes.
