Doctors believe that vaccination against the virus for those traveling to countries with a high incidence of hepatitis should become mandatory
According to scientists' forecasts, in 15-20 years viral hepatitis will pose the main danger to human health and become a threat to the demographic, economic, and social situation on a global scale. Warning tourists, WHO representatives say that vaccination against viral hepatitis should become as mandatory for those traveling to hepatitis-endemic countries as having a visa and passport. After all, today it is practically the only way to protect oneself from this severe disease.
If humanity managed to fight and eradicate smallpox caused by the variola virus, and the polio virus is on the verge of eradication, the situation with viral hepatitis is not so rosy and even seems hopeless. Let us conduct a brief analysis of the study of viral hepatitis.
Forty years ago, the existence of parenterally transmitted viral hepatitis was not even known. Botkin's disease, which is transmitted via the fecal-oral route (caused by the hepatitis A virus and most often called jaundice), was known.
Botkin's disease is curable, and a person acquires lifelong immunity after the illness. Interestingly, many people have a latent infection, and by age 40, 80% of Russian residents have antibodies to this virus. Nevertheless, it should be understood that there is no etiotropic treatment for hepatitis A, and most often pathogenetic and symptomatic therapy is performed, which cannot guarantee a positive outcome in 100% of cases during the convalescence stage.
Another fecal-oral hepatitis is type E, which is still poorly understood. This is due to the characteristics of the affected population. Most often, it is pregnant women, for whom this disease almost always ends fatally. Therefore, it is necessary either to prevent infection with this infection or to urgently terminate the pregnancy if infection is detected.
The virus that is transmitted parenterally is the hepatitis B virus. Despite the developed specific preventive measures in the form of vaccination, it has not been possible to reduce the number of patients with this viral infection. Nevertheless, we must give credit – we have managed to stabilize the growth of this infection. Viral hepatitis B can occur in both acute and chronic forms. If the infection follows an acute course, complete recovery occurs, but if the infection becomes chronic, a person suffers from the disease for life. Co-infection with hepatitis D and B is particularly dangerous. This infectious disease often has a fulminant course, and without therapy, the patient dies within days.
Nevertheless, fairly good treatment and prevention regimens for hepatitis B virus infection have been developed, allowing us to speak of a favorable prognosis for the acute course of this disease.
Another liver infection transmitted parenterally is viral hepatitis C. Particularly dangerous is the fact that effective prevention of this infection has still not been developed. There are vaccines against viral hepatitis C, but insufficient experience with their use has been accumulated, and there is no mass vaccination in our country. As a result, we are seeing an increase in the incidence of this infection, and the process is chronic, with no etiotropic treatment for this disease.
Today, many other pathogens of liver diseases are known. The recently identified hepatitis F virus is also transmitted parenterally. The prevalence of this infection is unknown to anyone, as no one is engaged in mass diagnosis. With such spread of this infection, there is a risk of developing a disease with an airborne transmission mechanism.