Campaigns

October is Liver Awareness Month, recognising the importance of liver health and the causes of liver disease.

Your liver is the powerhouse of your body – processing almost everything you eat and drink. It performs over 500 vital functions to keep you healthy – it cleans your blood and helps with energy and digestion, fights infection, and gets rid of harmful toxins. A healthy liver also helps with energy, fights infection, and gets rid of harmful toxins. A damaged liver can’t do these jobs properly, so good liver health is vital.

However, liver disease and viral hepatitis have a devastating effect on patients and families. During Liver Awareness Month, we bring you a range of stories, podcasts and articles featuring people with personal experience of liver disease – hepatitis B and C, liver cancer and autoimmune liver disease. These stories highlight the challenges and stigma they have faced, the personal impact, their spirit of survival, as well as what they have learned along the way.

Learn About Your Liver – Video Series

Did you know?

• Your liver is your largest internal organ, performing up to 500 functions to keep you healthy.
• More than six million Australians are or have been affected by liver disease.
• More than 7,000 Australians die each year from chronic liver disease.

Improve your liver health

Check out our tips for Eating Well, Getting Active, Feeling Well and being Drink Aware.

June 12 is Global Fatty Liver Day, a day to highlight details about Steatotic liver disease (formerly known as Fatty liver disease).

28 July is World Hepatitis Day (WHD) – one of nine urgent International Health days highlighted by the World Health Organization and partners across the globe.

The date of 28 July was chosen for World Hepatitis Day (WHD) in honour of the birthday of Nobel Laureate Professor Baruch Samuel Blumberg, discoverer of the hepatitis B virus and developer of the first hepatitis B vaccine based on research of the Australian antigen.

• Globally, a person dies every 30 seconds from a hepatitis-related illness.
• More than 74,000 people in Victoria are living with hepatitis B or hepatitis C, putting them at increased risk of liver disease and liver cancer.
• Liver cancer is the fastest known increasing cause of cancer death in Australia.
• In Victoria nearly 40% of people with hepatitis C have not received the antiviral curative treatment.
• While it is estimated that 70% of people living with chronic hepatitis B have been diagnosed, less than 30% are receiving care.
• Currently Routine blood tests do NOT screen for the hepatitis virus – patients must request it.
• We need population-wide testing of hepatitis B, so that every Australian knows their hepatitis B status and can get appropriate treatment and care.

Contact us if you’d like to get involved or have a campaign idea.