An Epidemic Silence

The silence is deafening. Every day, 6,000 Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders residing in Maricopa County live another day with a disease they don’t even know they carry. It’s a disease that may have already taken the lives of family and friends. It’s a disease that is so widespread in their native countries that it’s present in big cities, the rural countryside, the mountains, the plains, inland, and on the coasts. In many areas, it’s been passed along for generations. Mostly, it’s a disease that no one is talking about. The silence is deadly.

Hepatitis B is a virus that attacks the liver and causes liver cancer and cirrhosis. For those with “chronic” infection, the virus is carried for life. In the United States, it is a disproportionately significant source of death and disability among Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. More than 50% of the 1.25 million individuals with chronic hepatitis B in the United States are Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. Tragically, less than half are aware that they are infected, even though a simple blood test can detect the presence of the virus.

Here are some simple, but possibly life-saving facts about hepatitis B:

• Among foreign-born Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, many are infected as infants during childbirth or as young children through household exposure;

• One can carry the virus for decades without any symptoms – and still develop serious liver disease later in life;

• There is a vaccine that can prevent those who have not yet been exposed to the virus from becoming infected;

• Only a blood test can definitively diagnose hepatitis B;

• There is no cure for hepatitis B, but there are several FDA-approved treatments that can slow down the replication of the virus in the liver.

Every Asian American or Pacific Islander should get tested for hepatitis B. The only exceptions would be those who have already been tested and American born children less than 18 years of age. Ask your doctor for a hepatitis B test and vaccination.

Protect your family. Protect your community. Spread the word about hepatitis B. Break the silence!

-Doug Hirano, MPH, APCA Executive Director