My name is Raquel and over the next 12 months I will be travelling around the world on behalf of the World Hepatitis Alliance. As part of my tour, I will be meeting with patients, medical associations, patient groups and politicians to gain a better understanding of how countries are tackling hepatitis B and C and to share best practice from other countries...
Who am I? Well, 3½ years ago I knocked on a charity's door in London to ask if I could interview some people for my masters thesis on hepatitis. Since then I have turned a personal interest into my daily working life and have never left the hepatitis field. I have always been passionate about hepatitis – I lost someone I loved dearly to hepatitis C when I was 15 and have seen many other people needlessly suffer from hepatitis C and B through my charity work in this field.
Knowing that treatments for hepatitis C can be very effective if patients are diagnosed early and that there is a vaccine to prevent hepatitis B motivates me to continue raising awareness of these diseases which collectively affect 500 million people in the world and take 1.5 million lives a year.
I hope my journey helps bring change for the hepatitis community and that people benefit from it as a consequence. Welcome to my blog: keep up to date with my journey here!
Where will I be visiting?
On behalf of the World Hepatitis Alliance, I will be visiting the following countries to learn about how governments, patient advocacy groups and the medical community are tackling chronic hepatitis B and C:
Blogging together is an opportunity for bloggers, vloggers, and photo-bloggers to support the 'Am I Number 12?' campaign. Add a badge and show your support for the 500 million people living with hepatitis B and C today.
Alternatively if you want to make your own badge, send it to us and we will include it in our gallery of badges: worldhepday@fleishman.com
02/25/09 by: Raquel Jose
Argentina was a wonderful country to visit but I feel I must start this post by offering a little criticism - pointing out things that could be improved. So, here it goes (oh, and as a Brazilian I promise not to mention football in this post!)...
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02/20/09 by: Raquel Jose
I'm now leaving Sao Paulo and flying to Buenos Aires, in Argentina (trying to ignore the turbulence and how far away I am from my dear friend, the ground!). I wonder how similar (or different) the hepatitis situation is there...
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Argentina | Buenos Aires | hepatitis b | hepatitis c | Pan American Health Organization | patient groups
02/18/09 by: Raquel Jose
In my meetings with medical societies I heard that there was a hepatitis C treatment centre in the regional hospital of Osasco, a city in Sao Paulo State, which was doing a great job of treating patients with hepatitis C.
On my way to the centre I got stuck in traffic (again) for 50 minutes (I swear I could feel the wrinkles growing on my face while I waited for the cars to move). Luckily, when I arrived I received a lovely welcome.
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brazil | Digestive Disorders | Health | Hepatitis | hepatitis b | hepatitis c | hospital | sao paulo | São Paulo | south america | treatment centre
02/16/09 by: Raquel Jose
It is very difficult to understand what goes on in the field of hepatitis in a country so big and diverse as Brazil (it's also difficult to understand how, at 7.30am, it's already 28 degrees...) but from the meetings I've had with various Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs), medical societies and even politicians, it is clear that the situation they face in Brazil is not too dissimilar to that faced by many other countries - there's a huge lack of awareness and thousands of people remain undiagnosed.
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brazil | government action plan | hepatitis b | hepatitis c | south america | world health organization
02/12/09 by: Raquel Jose
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