Resources for the Strategic Plan

NVHR World Hepatitis Day Information Toolkit

Organizational Sign On Letter Requesting the Pan American Health Organization Endorse World Hepatitis Day

Given your interest and support for increasing the profile of the viral hepatitis epidemics in the U.S. and around the world, the World Hepatitis Alliance is seeking your help in its plans for World Hepatitis Day 2008.

Apologies for Cross Postings – Please Distribute to Hepatitis Advocates in Your Area!

With less than two weeks to go until World Hepatitis Day 2008, there are many activities planned throughout the country. Whether at the national, state or local level, there has been an overwhelming response from hepatitis advocates throughout the country! So many activities are being planned that have built on past observances or programs, and some communities are observing hepatitis awareness for the first time! However you are planning to raise awareness of viral hepatitis – whether focusing on World Hepatitis Day, Hepatitis Awareness Month, Hepatitis B Week – it is a wonderful opportunity to highlight the need for additional funding, services and community awareness!

Attached is the May World Hepatitis Day Newsletter as well as some background documents on the campaign.(see below>

Background
There are estimated to be at least 130 million people in the world living with hepatitis C and more than 350 million with hepatitis B, a total of almost 500 million. Yet it is widely recognized that awareness of hepatitis B and C is extremely low with the great majority of those infected unaware of the fact and the world public largely ignorant of infection risks. Inevitably, with competing health priorities, low awareness generally equates to low political will for action.

In recent years hepatitis patient groups have attempted to change this by co-ordinating awareness activities around a specific day, notably October 1st. However, despite some success, these initiatives have never been truly global, the North and South American patient groups, for example, being unable, for various reasons, to participate on October 1st. Furthermore, these initiatives have not always been driven by the patient groups themselves.

Patient group representatives from North America, South America, Europe, North Africa, Australasia and China therefore met in Barcelona in April 2007 to commit to a new global initiative. The necessity of a single awareness day to act as a focus was agreed, despite the acknowledgement that there are far too many such ‘days’, because it was felt that the level of awareness of chronic viral hepatitis was so inexplicably low for a problem of this size. May 19th was chosen, the first Day to be in 2008.

In order to oversee World Hepatitis Day and to ensure that it is a patient-led initiative, the World Hepatitis Alliance was established in Geneva with a governing board of patient representatives, one from each of 6 world regions, and a president representing the totality of hepatitis patients. During the summer of 2007 the Alliance asked 12 worldwide communications agencies to pitch to run the World Hepatitis Day campaign and chose Fleishman-Hillard.

Campaign Theme
The campaign focuses on the size of chronic viral hepatitis as a health challenge using a simple message: ‘Am I number 12?’ to highlight that approximately 1 in 12 of the world population has chronic HBV or HCV infection, that infection is often undiagnosed and that it could be any one of us (as opposed to some other group).

Campaign Aims
The aims of this single international day focusing on chronic viral hepatitis (B & C) are to:

12 Asks
Governments are being asked to commit to putting in place 12 constituents of an effective hepatitis programme. They are initially being asked to commit to them by 2012 with no fixed date for actioning them. Of course, some countries will find this much easier than others and part of our work in the future will be forming partnerships to make these commitments possible.
6 of the 12 are universal for all countries:

A further 6 will be tailored to the circumstances of each individual country. An example would be:

Public Health Panel
We have established a small public health panel of experts to provide advice and support. Expected to total 15 in all, it so far comprises:

 Partnerships
We are in discussions with major global institutions involved in the health field including the Gates Foundation, the Open Society Institute, UNICEF and the Red Cross and have so far received endorsements from the Clinton Foundation and Médecins Sans Frontières. We are also in discussions with the major clinical bodies involved with hepatitis such as EASL, AASLD and APASL and have so far received confirmed endorsement from ALEH, the Latin American Association for the Study of the Liver.

Funding
Funding has been sought from a wide range of sponsors. So far it has been received from 6 competing pharmaceutical companies that manufacture drugs for the treatment of HBV or HCV or both – BMS, Gilead, Janssen-Cilag, Novartis, Roche and Schering-Plough – and from the financial information provider Bloomberg.

NVHR is developing resources to help garner national support and momentum for the Plan.
Click here to open and view the Plan's Palm Card.

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Legislative Toolkit

The Legislastive Process: A Citizen's Guide to Participation