State health minister in charge of primary health care, Ms Sara Opendi has called for an increase in screening and treatment of hepatitis C across Uganda saying that this will help the country to drive down the cost of buying the drugs for the disease.

She was speaking on Thursday during the launch of the 2014 Rotary Family Health Days at Namboole Stadium. The minister says that most of the people infected with hepatitis C and hepatitis B don’t know that they have the disease due to lack of proper screening.

A big number of Ugandans cannot access treatment for these diseases due to the high cost and they end up in the world of the dead.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) indicates that about 350,000 people die of hepatitis C-related liver diseases every year and over four million people become infected each year. Hepatitis C and B is caused by a virus that is transmitted through sharing needles, receiving contaminated blood transfusions or having sex with an infected person.

No vaccine exists for hepatitis C, but some antiviral treatments like Gilead Sciences’ Sofosbuvir, have been shown to cure more than 90 percent of those treated.

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