What is Hepatitis?
Wednesday, May 7th, 2008In short, Hepatitis means inflammation of the liver. With over 140 functions, it’s a vital organ, which when diseased can have an extremely detrimental effect on the rest of the body’s health. The disease exists in viral forms A, B, C, D, E, F and G, although the most common of these are Hepatitis B and C.
Each case of Hepatitis, regardless of its strain can be classified as either acute (lasting 6 months or less) or chronic (lasting longer than 6 months). Acute Hepatitis usually produces more symptomatic patients that its chronic counterparts. They often experience flu-like symptoms, nausea, diarrhoea, loss of appetite and jaundice.
At present the public’s knowledge of how Hepatitis is spread is somewhat lacking and due to its infectious nature more and more people contract the disease worldwide each day. To help the World Hepatitis Alliance boost public awareness of Hepatitis, sign up to their 2008 campaign at www.aminumber12.org.