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
4 result(s) displayed (1 - 4 of 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.
... read more
07/13/09 by: Raquel Jose
As you can see from my updates, 'Am I number 12?' was used in many, many countries this year. It even crossed the turquoise waters of Mauritius!
... read more
06/19/09 by: Raquel Jose
Hi guys, sorry I haven't posted anything for a week or so but believe it or not, there's still a lot of work to be done (such as liaising with patient groups, producing a WHD 09 wrap up report, thanking the campaign supporters, starting to plan World Hepatitis Day 2010, organising a board meeting - which involves more than setting up an agenda and flying board directors in - etc, etc, etc).
... read more
06/ 3/09 by: Raquel Jose
Hi Everyone,
First of all, a big well-done to all of the patient groups, doctors, nurses and volunteers who helped make World Hepatitis Day 2009 a big success.
... read more
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