Search
×

Sign up

Use your Facebook account for quick registration

Sign up with Facebook

OR

Create a Shvoong account from scratch

Create your account
Already a Member? Sign In!
×

Sign In

Sign in using your Facebook account

Sign in with Facebook

OR

Not a Member? Sign up!
×

Sign up

Use your Facebook account for quick registration

Sign up with Facebook

OR

Sign In

Sign in using your Facebook account

Sign in with Facebook
Shvoong Home>Society & News>Environment>Dangerous Blood Summary

Dangerous Blood

Article Summary   by:ElkabberAwi     Original Author: ethar elkataney
  • Summary rating: 5 stars (1 Ratings)
  • Visits : 19
  • words:900 
ª
 
Hatem Mohammad was only 28 when a relative approached him with concern and told him that his eyes were yellow. One week later, after getting a check-up, he found out that he had been living with Hepatitis C for the majority of his life and had probably contracted it when he was circumcised as a baby. His best bet at staying alive was a liver transplant.

After four years of searching for a donor and spending a quarter of a million Egyptian pounds, Mohammad finally received a partial liver transplant in September 2008.

Mohammad had donated blood several times in the past decade. If any one of the places where he had donated blood had taken the time to let him know he was sick, he would not be in the state he is today.

“I am running for my daily bread,” says Mohammad, who runs a chain of successful koshari shops. “I and Egyptians like myself don’t have time to go for check-ups. [If we donate blood] and you find out we’re sick, [...] tell us we’re sick [so] we can save ourselves.”

Blood donations in Egypt have come under the microscope lately, with the company Haidylena making headlines in 2007 when it was accused of providing the Ministry of Health with more than 200,000 defective blood bags, which could have spread diseases had they been used.

In addition to the concern that the blood-borne Hepatitis C virus (HCV) may spread if infected blood is used in transfusions, an additional worry has been raised: If blood donors are found to have HCV and are not being notified, they are at risk of infecting others.

Home-grown Virus

Mohammad’s case is not unique. In Egypt, according to 2003 figures from both the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Ministry of Health, an estimated 10-15 percent of the population — a whopping 8-12 million people — have Hepatitis C antibodies in their bloodstream (meaning they have or have had HCV), making Egypt the country with the highest prevalence rate of the virus in the world. The WHO reported in 2003 that approximately 20% of Egyptian blood donors are anti-HCV positive.

Hepatitis C, which attacks the liver, can be cleared from the bloodstream only if caught very early on; left untreated, it can be deadly.

“It’s ridiculous how when 10 people in Egypt had bird flu the whole country was agitated and Sha’bola [popular singer Sha’ban Abdel Rahim] was singing about it,” says Dr. Hassan Azzazy, chair of the chemistry department at the American University in Cairo. “But when you have 10 million people with a disease that’s almost as deadly as AIDS — both are viruses, both kill the immune system, and [neither] have vaccines — no one pays any attention.”

Azzazy, who has taught at three universities in the United States, is currently developing new diagnostic techniques to detect the presence of HCV at extremely low levels, meaning the disease can be treated earlier. He is also using nanotechnology, molecular biotechnology and bioinformatics — microbiology and information technology combined — to develop new treatments for the disease.

In essence, the problem of HCV has simply become too big to be seen. At the National Hepatology and Tropical Medicine Research Institute, where many HCV patients come for treatment, dozens and dozens of people, most dressed in galabeyyas and abayas, sit on the stairs and floors for hours, waiting with dozens of others to receive their medications or letters authorizing them to receive subsidized treatment.

HCV is transmitted by bodily exposure to blood infected with the virus, for example, through injections with an infected needle, blood transfusions or organ transplants. Substandard practices by personnel who perform medical procedures such as circumcisions can also spread the virus. The WHO also estimates that five out of every 100 infants born to HCV-infected women become infected.

More rare, although also possible, are cases where the virus is transferred via shared personal care items such as razors or toothbrushes that have been in contact with an infected person’s blood. There is also a risk of transmission through sexual relations with an HCV-infected partner, though studies have proven it to be low unless a person has multiple partners, which ups the risk factor. HCV is not spread through food or water, nor is it transmitted through sneezing, coughing or kissing.

According to the WHO report, some 40 percent of people infected with HCV recover fully; the rest become chronic carriers of the virus. About 20 percent of the chronic carriers develop cirrhosis, scarring of liver tissue. Of those people, up to 20 percent develop liver cancer. HCV is one of the top five causes of death in Egypt. Both cirrhosis and liver cancer require liver transplants for the patient to survive, but even then the liver will become reinfected after 5-7 years.


Published: May 18, 2010   
Please Rate this Summary : 1 2 3 4 5
Write your own     Comment
View All  
Translate Send Link Print
X

Top 5

.