Hepatitis C is a viral infection that is carried in the blood and can cause serious damage to the liver. Hepatitis C has been compared to a "viral time bomb". The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that about 180 million people, some 3% of the world's population, are infected with Hepatitis C virus (HCV), 130 million of whom are chronic HCV carriers at risk of developing liver cirrhosis and/or liver cancer. It is estimated that three to four million persons are newly infected each year, 70 percent of which will develop chronic hepatitis. HCV is responsible for 50-76 percent of all liver cancer cases, and two thirds of all liver transplants in the developed world.

As many as 300,000 Canadians (1 in 100) are infected with Hepatitis C virus and up to 4,000 new cases are diagnosed annually. Hepatitis C is called the silent epidemic because the majority of people who have Hepatitis C have no symptoms and are not aware the virus infects them. It can take decades for symptoms of Hepatitis C to emerge and when they do, damage to the liver may have already occurred.

Why The World Should Ask ‘Am I Number 12?’

The ‘Am I Number 12?’ campaign has already kicked off in 55 countries and high-profile campaigns are being coordinated from Sydney to Serbia and from Beijing to Buenos Aires. Charles Gore, President of the World Hepatitis Alliance, said that with 1.5 million people dying every year, chronic viral hepatitis could no longer be ignored. “Through the ‘Am I Number 12?’ campaign and activities around the world on 19 May we aim to put hepatitis B and C firmly on the global health care agenda,” Mr Gore said.

Mr Gore said that, unlike other disease areas, awareness of hepatitis B and C remains inexplicably low: “We believe that, unless awareness improves, we won’t make any progress in reducing the enormous and largely preventable death toll. Hepatitis B and hepatitis C should have the same profile as HIV/AIDS, malaria and TB and should really be up there alongside those diseases in the WHO’s millennium goals.”

Did You Know?
o 500 million people worldwide are currently infected with hepatitis B or C
o This is over 10 times the number infected with HIV/AIDS
o Between them, hepatitis B and C kill 1.5 million people a year
o One in every three people on the planet has been exposed to either or both viruses
o Most of the 500 million infected do not know