In the news, have you ever seen stories about parents suffering from liver cancer and their children donating livers? Although the family is touching, in fact, if you have the habit of health check-ups, there is no need to go to the step of donating livers.

Chen Peizhe, executive member of the Taiwan Liver Research Society and academician of Academia Sinica, said that Taiwan has effectively controlled liver disease in newborns starting from babies. However, many elderly people who have not benefited from the vaccine have become invisible carriers of hepatitis B problems.

Unfortunately, older people are less aware of screening and have limited access to information. Therefore, he encouraged young people to take the initiative to take their parents for screening. "In the news, many filial children donate livers to their parents. In fact, there is no need to go to this step. Simple screening can prevent many things from happening before they happen," Chen Peizhe pointed out. 270,000 people are carriers of hepatitis B without knowing it

According to the latest epidemiological survey data from the Taiwan Liver Research Association, there are currently about 1.71 million hepatitis B carriers in Taiwan, which has dropped below the 2 million mark. The medical community believes that this is good news after the government has successively promoted comprehensive vaccination and health insurance to provide medicines. It is estimated that the population of the original population is expected to further drop to less than one million by 2030, making the eradication of hepatitis B and getting rid of the national disease no longer a distant dream. Target.

Although the number of hepatitis B carriers has dropped below the 2 million mark, there are still 270,000 people who do not know that they are hepatitis B carriers because they have not been diagnosed. In fact, with a simple blood test, you can know your disease problems and actively treat them to prevent the occurrence of liver cancer.

Jian Rongnan, deputy director of Linkou Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, suggested that resources have been invested in vaccines, drugs, and ***, but there are still gaps in comprehensive hepatitis B screening that need to be strengthened. Although the current The National Health Service provides people who were born in 1955 or later and are over 45 years old to receive a hepatitis B screening service once in their lifetime. However, it is better to have a comprehensive screening service, which is more helpful for people who do not know that they have the original infection. People are alert. Pregnant women are responsible for reducing the number of newborn babies born with hepatitis B every year.

Chien Rong-nan said that the main reason for the prevalence of hepatitis B in Taiwan is vertical infection from mother to child. Therefore, in 1984, hepatitis B vaccine was first administered to newborns born to mothers with original hepatitis B carriers, and in 1986, newborns were fully vaccinated with hepatitis B vaccine. After these two measures, the infected population has been significantly reduced.

However, Lin Junyan, director of the Department of Internal Medicine at Linkou Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, mentioned that 10% of the cases that slipped through the net were already infected in the mother's body. According to statistics, more than 200 babies are still infected vertically from mother to child every year.

Fortunately, at the beginning of this year, the National Health Insurance included two drugs for pregnant women with hepatitis B that are highly contagious into the national insurance. As long as mothers in the high-risk group are tested to have high viral loads, they can take hepatitis B from the 30th week of pregnancy. Antiviral drugs can reduce the chance of transmission to newborns from 10% to 1% by 1 month postpartum.

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