Previous postings (here and here) have pointed to incidents of social discrimination against persons with Hepatitis B in China. Today we see the report that of the 120 million Chinese who have tested positive for Hepatitis B, nearly 500,000 die annually, according to Wang Zhao, head of China’s Hepatitis Prevention Foundation.
With these kinds of numbers, the mounting evidence of social stigma should be a cause of even greater concern. People fearful of the consequences of revealing their illness will often avoid whatever care and treatment options they have available to them. This is a challenge not only for China’s health authorities, but for the world at large, since infectious diseases such as Hepatitis B do not respect our cherished national boundaries.
