Welcome to the first issue of the B Informed, B Educated, B a Hero: Hep B Free Quarterly!

To commemorate World Hepatitis Day on July 28th, San Francisco Hep B Free will be working in collaboration with ThinkTank Learning to help screen over 2.500 people for hepatitis B, a viral infection that can lead to both acute and chronic diseases but is easily  preventable through vaccination.  Screenings will take place at eleven ThinkTank Learning centers in the Bay Area.  As part of World Hepatitis Day, an event will also be held at Stanford University's White Memorial Plaza to promote awareness of viral hepatitis (see World Hepatitis Day 2013 July 28th article below).

In the past months, through the tireless efforts of the Santa Clara Hep B Free and the invaluable help of Santa Clara County Supervisor Ken Yeager of District 4, a position specifically for hepatitis B prevention was created at the Santa Clara County Department of Public Health.  With the unanimous passing of the hepatitis B coordinator position at the county-level, we will be continuing our efforts in raising county-wide awareness and prevention of hepatitis B!

First launched in 2008 by the World Hepatitis Alliance and the World Health Organization, World Hepatitis Day is an annual event aimed at raising global awareness of viral hepatitis in order to encourage its prevention, diagnosis, and treatment.  Last year’s event marked its fifth year, and also established a Guinness World Record when 12,588 people from 20 countries around the world participated in the “See no Evil, Hear no Evil, Speak no Evil” campaign to signify the ignorance of viral hepatitis. 

This year’s themes include “This is hepatitis. Know it. Confront it” and from last year, “See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil."  These demonstrate how hepatitis is a silent epidemic that is ignored around the world, and that we must understand and confront it in order to stop its spread.  According to the WHO, the goal is to strengthen prevention screening and control of viral hepatitis, to increase hepatitis B vaccine coverage and its integration into national immunization programs, and to coordinate a global response to hepatitis.This year we aim to surpass last year’s record.  On Sunday, July 28th from 11:00am-12:30pm PM, the Asian Liver Center will again be hosting the "See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil" event at White Memorial Plaza, Stanford University. The event will feature guest performances and speakers, who will be giving talks about viral hepatitis and its impact locally and globally.  There will also be free and newly designed Jade Ribbon Campaign t-shirts given to the first 100 participants, as well as raffle prizes to Target, Amazon, In-N-Out, and much more!  Similar events will also be held in Boston and New York City.

Help us achieve our goal of raising awareness of the dangers of viral hepatitis by inviting as many people to come out as possible and to be a part of the Guinness World Records!  With your help, we will be one step closer to eradicating this silent epidemic worldwide. 

To find out more, please check out our Facebook event and click "Join" if able to participate: https://www.facebook.com/events/642671179094255

For any donations or inquiries, please email Jennifer Chao at collegiate@teamhbv.org.

In the United States alone, multinational corporations employ 20% of all U.S. workers.  This—in conjunction with rising immigration from endemic regions and investments in workplace wellness programming—represents an unprecedented opportunity to reach millions of individuals who are at risk for living with undiagnosed chronic HBV.  It also inspired the establishment of YuCorps, a corporate outreach program based at the Asian Liver Center at Stanford University.

Since 2012, YuCorps has been focused on educating private sector employers and employees about risk, transmission, and the benefits of prevention.  Its ultimate goal is to help eliminate the incidence, mortality and discrimination associated with chronic hepatitis B and liver cancer.  Some of its initiatives include:

- Development of two key educational resources for the Pregnancy Care Program at Honeywell in India.  These will empower chronically infected mothers-to-be with knowledge to protect their newborns from mother-to-child transmission, which accounts for upwards of 40% of new infections in Asia.
- Education about risk, transmission, and the benefits of prevention for more than 550 employees at Lockheed Martin Corporation in Sunnyvale, California.  Sunnyvale is part of Santa Clara County which has the second highest incidence of liver cancer in the U.S.
- Development of an education campaign to reach 12,000 employees working at Honeywell in China, where the worldwide burden is highest.  The campaign will be launched in anticipation of World Hepatitis Day (every July 28th). 

Through continued partnership building, YuCorps hopes to work towards systemic policy change leading to measurable employee wellness and ultimately, healthier communities.  For questions or comments relating to YuCorps, please contact Mie-Na Srein at mienas@stanford.edu or 650.566.8862

Hep B Moms is the perinatal branch of the Asian Liver Center dedicated to the elimination of mother-to-child transmission of hepatitis B infection and aims to protect every child from liver cancer caused by hepatitis B.  Many pregnant women with chronic hepatitis B are unaware of their infection and could end up silently passing the virus to the next generation at birth.  Hep B Moms helps to empower women so they can say “Hep B stops with me”.   

We offer educational materials and resources targeted at  pregnant women to show how important and easy it is to protect your child against hepatitis B and liver cancer.. Many of our materials and resources are being utilized nationwide.  In 2011, we distributed nearly 90,000 brochures, reaching 142 cities and 33 states. Hep B Moms partners with the CDC, public health departments, hospitals, and health care providers to ensure that Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, the demographic most affected by hepatitis B and liver cancer, have access to educational materials that are culturally and linguistically appropriate.

Hep B Moms also works toward addressing gaps in provider knowledge. In the last 2 years, we have published our research about lack of provider knowledge and barriers to patient education pertaining to perinatal transmission of hepatitis B. In response, we’ve developed additional provider and patient resources to support hepatitis B education and awareness across the country. This summer, we sent out the inaugural issue of Hep B Moms Quarterly, a newsletter for health care providers about the latest hepatitis B news and resources.

For more information on Hep B Moms please visit our website at www.HepBMoms.org or contact Chrissy Cheung at Chrissy@HepBMoms.org.

Asian Liver Center established Asian Pacific Alliance to Eliminate Viral Hepatitis (APAVH) in 2008 with a mission to address the high prevalence of hepatitis B and liver cancer in WHO south Asia and Western Pacific region.  APAVH works towards uniting partners in public health, government, industry and foundations to deliver high-impact interventions, advocacy and research to address gaps and support World Health Organization regional plan and recommendations. The ultimate goal is to eliminate hepatitis B transmission and reduce complications of chronic viral hepatitis. The countries that Asian Liver Center have been working with include Philippines, Laos, Vietnam, Mongolia and China.

Asian Liver Center’s efforts in China weight s the most in its overall efforts in the region. With a new on-site office kicked off in Beijing in March 2012, Asian Liver Center’s activities in China was brought to another level reaching out to governments, civil societies, academic institutions, NGOs, business groups and individuals who are affected by hepatitis B. Besides the well documented Qinghai catch up vaccination projects which provided free vaccination to more than 600,000 Kindergarten and primary school students between 2006-2008, the current projects  focus on increasing newborn vaccination, improving screening and compliance of regular checkups of the chronically infected people through public education and health provider training.

To accelerate the training efforts to the health care workers in China on hepatitis B and its prevention, Asian Liver Center developed the first of its kind a free evidence based online training course in Chinese (www.knowhbv.org) to provide health care workers in China a convenient yet effective training tool to help them to understand hepatitis B, its transmission routes, testing results explanation, protecting patients and themselves from infecting hepatitis B and other blood-borne diseases at the hospital settings, and the long-term management of hepatitis B chronically infected patients. Thousands of health care workers from Beijing, Shandong, Gansu and Qinghai provinces have taken the course online since 2011, which will benefit millions of patients in China.

Asian liver center Beijing office reached out to 20 top universities in Beijing in 2011 to improve hepatitis B knowledge and decrease discrimination among university students. The project was in collaboration with Beijing Center for Disease Control and Prevention and culminated with a summer camp for the student leaders in Beijing China.