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

Looking ahead to 2010

09/10/09 by: Raquel Jose

So as I mentioned in my post on Ghana on 28th August, I've been really busy recently with a number of projects for the World Hepatitis Day 2010 campaign.  I know, it seems like we've only just had World Hepatitis Day this year but you wouldn't believe how much work and planning there is to get done.  We really appreciate the feedback that we received from everyone on the 2009 campaign and hope you'll be really pleased with what we have in store for the next year.

For a start, there's going to be an exciting new campaign theme for 2010 and 2011. I can't reveal any details yet but more will be announced soon! Also, remember the monthly newsletters from World Hepatitis Alliance to keep everyone up to date on the global campaign for World Hepatitis Day?  Well, they're going to have a new look for 2010, as is the global website so keep an eye on that over the next few months. 

Just like last year there will be a whole new range of campaign materials including posters and postcards that can be adapted for local activities. We've also been working on projects including the WHO resolution on viral hepatitis, a survey on global hepatitis policy and the '12 Asks' programme.

 

We've got some great new ideas for World Hepatitis Day 2010 to share with you in the coming months, so stay tuned!

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