Treat Patients with Life-Saving Hepatitis B Meds

To our supporters:

We thank you for your continued support. Since the beginning of 2024, our Hepatitis B Free teams have been very active, and the rest of the year will be busy, indeed. As we visit our wide-ranging projects our goals include: increasing public awareness of the dangers of hepatitis; building infrastructure such as strengthening testing and laboratory capabilities; training health personnel to achieve sustainability; reducing the burden of disease through prevention and treatment; and ultimately, eliminating hepatitis in each country.

In January, Dr. Alice Lee and Sue Huntley travelled to the Pacific Island country of Niue. A recent screening of the entire population of Niue for hepatitis B identified a small number of positive cases. These individuals were seen by our team and started on treatment as indicated. These accomplishments qualify Niue to be the first country in the world to have eliminated hepatitis B. A film crew from New Zealand documented these activities, and a link to the video will be posted on our website www.hepatitisbfree.org.au

A team consisting of Drs. Alice Lee, Thomas Russell, and David Hilmers, along with Sue Huntley and sonographer Grace Moon visited our project in Kiribati in March. We had an extremely busy yet highly productive trip. Major activities included the introduction of a new electronic health record to the hepatitis clinic at the main hospital in South Tarawa; evaluating approximately 250 patients in clinic; performing endoscopy (gastroscopy and colonoscopy) and training local physicians in its use; teaching medical assistants and nurses about hepatitis during a two day seminar; and providing hepatitis education for medical students, medical residents, and staff. Endoscopy revealed three previously undiagnosed cancers, and several more cancers were identified by ultrasound and during clinical examination. Approximately 100 patients were started or continued on life-saving therapy during our clinics. In addition, we had productive meetings with the Australian embassy, the local World Health Organization representative, volunteers from other charitable organizations, officials from local and foreign businesses, and high level members of the Ministry of Health and Medical Services. Many needs remain unfilled due to inadequate funding, particularly on the more remote outer islands, and we are in the process of submitting multiple grants to potential donors to try to bridge these gaps. We have already started a universal screening program on South Tarawa, where over half the population of Kiribati lives, with our partners from the University of Sydney with whom we share a grant from the Australian government.

The rest of 2024 promises to be full on. Two more trips are planned to Kiribati and at least one to Papua New Guinea and Tonga. In September a team will travel to Madagascar to continue our work there. None of this could be possible without your support and encouragement, both of which are deeply appreciated.

Best wishes,

David Hilmers

Happy holidays to our faithful supporters! As 2023 comes to a close, we are very thankful for your interest and generosity throughout the past year. Since our last report in September, our team has been quite active, traveling to Papua New Guinea, Tonga and Kiribati. We were encouraged by the status of our ongoing projects and enthusiastic about the prospect of new programs.

In October our team visited Port Moresby, the capital of Papua New Guinea. This trip was packed with meetings with governmental officials, representatives from WHO, and the medical staff at Port Moresby General Hospital. Agreements were reached to initiate a general hepatitis B program at the hospital and a collaborative project with the obstetrics department to treat pregnant women infected with hepatitis B. The latter program is of particular significance since it will reduce the number of infants born with hepatitis B. Hepatitis B Free will use your donations to provide the diagnostic kits and treatment needed to jumpstart these initiatives. In addition, an opportunity has emerged on the island of New Britain (one of the provinces of Papua New Guinea). Physicians at a mission hospital near Rabaul are keen to start treating their patients infected with hepatitis B. We are excited about the possibility of reaching this area where treatment has not been previously available.

Later in October a team visited our project in the Kingdom of Tonga. We were relieved to see that the main island has largely recovered from the offshore volcanic eruption and subsequent tsunami. We were also quite pleased to see how well the hepatitis program, that commenced during our last visit in 2020, had fared during the COVID pandemic. The government is providing excellent support for the program, patients have been diagnosed, referred for evaluation, and placed on treatment when appropriate. We brought imaging equipment for specialized liver evaluations, saw patients, met with government officials, and provided staff training. This was a very encouraging and productive trip.

Two members from our team spent two weeks in Kiribati in December. This trip was dedicated to needs assessments, providing support for hepatitis clinics, and coordinating with governmental officials and other organizations working on the islands. We are looking forward to partnering with a consortium that will help manage tuberculosis, leprosy, scabies and hepatitis B on the islands. Each of these represents a major health problem. This partnership will allow us to provide more comprehensive screening of the population and improved linkage to care.

The coming year will be another busy one with trips to established sites as discussed above and others such as Madagascar. We wish each of you a very happy holiday season and a prosperous 2024. Thank you again for your generous support and gifts.

With gratitude,

David