A Journey of Discovery in Hepatitis B and C

About My Journey

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:

  • Argentina
  • Australia
  • Bangladesh
  • Brazil
  • China (including Hong Kong and Taiwan)
  • Ghana
  • Poland
  • New Zealand
  • Scotland
  • USA
  • Vietnam

Blogging Together

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

Join me and support worldhepatitisday.org

News from Ghana - part 1

08/28/09 by: Raquel Jose

Hi everyone,

I know it's been a while since I last posted anything on the blog but it's been a very busy few weeks. I've been working hard on various projects for World Hepatitis Day 2010, engaging in discussions with the WHO and other organisations and oh, I also went to Ghana to learn more about the hepatitis B issues that they are facing.

(I'm telling you, I'm so tired the shades of black under my eyes are here to stay - they are back with a vengeance and there's no make-up in this world that can get rid of them!)

So, I got back from Ghana last week and all I can say is that it was a truly memorable trip. Achim Kautz, the World Hepatitis Alliance board member for Europe, accompanied me and together we met doctors, politicians, foundations, patients and celebrities.

We conducted presentations on hepatitis B to Ghanaian workers and church-goers, we were interviewed by national newspaper and radio stations, we spoke to the people in the streets and most importantly, we learned a lot (we are now in talks with the people we met to provide adequate help).

In my next post I'll tell you more about this great trip - so watch this space!

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