Algeria - Arab Today
The President of the Society of Hepatitis C patients, Abdelhamid Boualak, stressed that despite the possibilities allocated by the Algerian state to block the disease, hundreds of cases infected with this disease are discovered during the routine tests.
Abdelhamid Bouallak, in a press statement for Arabs Today, commented on the statistics of more than 1 million people with hepatitis in Algeria, saying that this figure is "frightening", because Algeria has a population of 36 million.
He said that one of the main reasons for the spread of the disease is the absence of a strategy for early detection of this disease, despite the considerable potential allocated by the Algerian government, allocated 2.5 billion euros to combat it, noting that the centers for biological testing usually suffer from a great paucity in medicines which complicates the treatment of patients, and also recorded a paucity in the tools used to treat the needle used to cut tissue.
Most dentists do not have the necessary sterilizers to sterilize their instruments, which contributes to the spread of hepatitis, Boualak said, stressing the need to generalize the procedures for the cleansing of dental surgeons and the need to provide them with gloves and masks, not only to the surgeons of teeth, but it is necessary to require all medical practitioners to respect the conditions and standards of hygiene.
Algeria is known to have a large prevalence of hepatitis B and C in particular, while the prevalence of A and E is low, and the disease infects the patient during childhood and is usually without symptoms.
A US scientific team discovered a while ago that current viral hepatitis C treatments are effective, depending on their effectiveness in eliminating the virus in the body in 99 percent of patients and in therapeutic periods of up to seven years.
Since 2003, Abdelhamid Boualak has been leading the Society of Hepatitis C patients, which strives to provide material and moral services to patients, located throughout Algeria.