Hepatitis: Let’s Break It Down – World Hepatitis Day 2025
Hepatitis B and C infographics and special edition of Epi Insight released to mark World Hepatitis Day 2025
World Hepatitis Day occurs each year on 28th July to raise awareness of the global burden of viral hepatitis. The World Health Organization estimated that over 300 million people were living with chronic hepatitis B and C in 2022. In their World Hepatitis Day 2025 campaign, they highlight that chronic hepatitis B and C silently cause liver damage and cancer – despite them being preventable, treatable, and, in the case of hepatitis C, curable.
The theme of the campaign for 2025 is Hepatitis: Let’s Break It Down. This is intended to emphasise the need to break down the barriers that are standing in the way of eliminating hepatitis B and C as a public health problem. The world needs to simplify, scale up, and integrate hepatitis services – vaccination, safe injection practices, harm reduction and especially testing and treatment – into national health systems to end hepatitis as a public health problem by 2030.
Get the facts
To mark World Hepatitis Day, HPSC is releasing two new infographics on the epidemiology of hepatitis B and C in Ireland and a special issue of Epi Insight focussed on hepatitis. Slidesets on the epidemiology of hepatitis B and hepatitis C in Ireland have also been released.
Take action
If you are at risk for hepatitis C, get tested. Hepatitis C screening in Ireland is offered in addiction settings, in prisons, in maternity units (universal screening in maternity hospitals in Dublin, risk-based outside of Dublin), by services providing migrant health screening, in publicly-funded STI clinics and through an on-line home testing service. With continued emphasis on testing those at risk, engaging patients in care, and antiviral treatment, hepatitis C should become a rare disease in Ireland in the near future.
Hepatitis B is a vaccine preventable disease. With high vaccine uptake rates worldwide, particularly in infants and children, elimination is possible. If you are in a risk group, ask your doctor about getting tested for hepatitis B. If you are not infected and not already immune, talk to your doctor about getting vaccinated against hepatitis B.