The Ondo State Government says that it is targeting no fewer than 3,000 residents of the state for free hepatitis screening.
The Special Adviser( SA) on Health Matters to Gov. Lucky Aiyedatiwa, Professor Simidele Odimayo, stated this during a free hepatitis screening on Saturday in Akure.
There was a road walk campaign and sensitisation on hepatitis infection led by the SA before the commencement of the screening in marking the 2024 World Hepatitis Day.
The theme for 2024 edition is: “It’s Time for Action.”
Odimayo stated that the state governor was passionate and concerned about well-being of people of the state, hence the need to educate the populace on the way to prevent the hepatitis infection and carry out the free hepatitis screening.
The special adviser said that those who were positive to hepatitis would be structured for further test and for possible commencement of treatment.
He said that the governor had given mandate to tackle the infection across the state.
Odimayo said that his office in conjunction with the state Ministry of Health and the Laboratry Medical Scientists had interacted with major stakeholders so that the government could place hepatitis patients in hospitals for treatment.
Odimayo noted that there was a peculiarity of hepatitis infection in the state that the government was trying to know more and tackle.
“ The state government has observed that there is peculiarity in the viral hepatitis that we have in the state. We have seen people with low viral load in hepatitis coming up with complications.
“ And ordinarily, this low viral load by the European Community for Hepatitis, they feel that patient with low viral pals doesn’t need treatment. But in our own case, these patients with low viral load are coming with complication of hepatitis like liver cancer.
“ Then we have looked at it to know the type of hepatitis that our people are having. All these efforts the state government is making.
“ Those who are positive, we will go ahead and do viral loading for them and genotyping for them as well and we will send the samples in order to do sequencing for them so that we can know the peculiarity of hepatitis we are having here,” he stated.
Also speaking, the state Chairman of the Young Medical Laboratory Scientists’ Forum, Mr Kehinde Ayedapo, said that the forum partnered the Office of SA on Health Matters to ensure there was a good change in well being of residents of the state.
He regretted that hepatitis was less talked about with little awareness about the infection from the Non Governmental Organization ( NGO) in the country.
He said that most people heard about the infection only when they became sick or wanted to donate blood.
He said that forum would get to all nooks and crannies of the state to create more awareness about the infection, which he said was contagious and deadly.