Mwalimu: Hepatitis is another silent killer

Hepatitis has been branded as another silent killer disease in the country because it takes time to show its signs after infection.

Minister of Health, Community Development, Gender, Children and Elderly Ms Ummy Mwalimu said this on Friday when briefing journalists as the world commemorates international hepatitis day themed ‘eradicate hepatitis’.

She said that though there were no coherent data, but hepatitis has proved to be a very dangerous disease which kills people slowly.

She said it takes long time for a person to recognise that he or she has been infected and this usually occurs when the disease is at advanced stages.

“Therefore, it becomes very difficult to treat the disease successful at such stage,” she said adding:

"We are relying on  blood donation based data, currently we don't exact data but the disease claim many lives in Tanzania and around the world."

Available estimates shows that hepatitis account for 16 percent of all deaths in Tanzania.