Eradicating the Silent Killer

Two per cent of the population lives with viral hepatitis, but many are unaware until it’s too late, so a social enterprise is upskilling individuals and organisations to respond to the silent pandemic. 

Melanie Eagle CEO says “a vital part of eradicating viral hepatitis is to assist service providers to be competent and capable in dealing with the illness.”

“As a way to intervene… to achieve the targets that have been agreed to globally around the elimination of viral hepatitis, is to upskill the workforce, particularly health and community workers who come into contact with people who are at risk of or live with viral hepatitis,” she says.

“We want to empower those workers so they can have the necessary conversations, which is often difficult because it’s quite a stigmatised and poorly understood condition.

“We want them to have the conversations to encourage people to get tested and to get into treatment, and we then see the workforce as part of the solution, we want to empower them to be part of the eradication program around hepatitis.”