Currently, Spain continues to register a large number of cases of acute hepatitis B among the countries of the European Union (EU), with a total of 496 cases, only behind Germany, which has 661 affected patients. In addition, Spain has an average of 1.1 affected per 100,000 inhabitants of the territory, which is only surpassed by Latvia (2.2) and Iceland (1.5), according to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC).
The problem is given by the stagnation, since 2015, when there was a record of 529 cases, has barely managed to lower the number of affected. While in 2014 it managed to drop from 633 to 529 cases, in recent years there has been a paralysis in this regard, if we compare it with other European countries. In many EU countries, they have managed to reduce from 1.1 affected per 100,000 inhabitants in 2008 to 0.6 at present.
However, European countries have seen a considerable rise over the same period, from 6.7 per 100,000 population in 2008 to 10.2 today. The United Kingdom has recorded 62% of the cases of chronic hepatitis B, which has led to 58% of the 27,000 new cases of the disease being classified as chronic.
However, the ECDC warns that the data collected are not fully representative, as it is difficult to correctly interpret such a large amount of data. In the case of Spain, for example, they do not distinguish between chronic and acute cases, but show them together, unlike the other countries in the study.
Routes of transmission
Cases of acute hepatitis B can have a wide variety of origins. Of the 718 acute cases that do not represent a representative sample due to lack of information the routes of transmission were:
- Sexual transmission in heterosexual intercourse (27%).
- Nosocomial transmission, i.e., those contracted by a patient in the same hospital (16%).
- Sexual transmission in homosexual relations (13%).
- Transmission through wounds that have occurred in the workplace (10%).
- Transmission through injecting drug use (10%).
Eradicating hepatitis C: the priority
The World Health Organization (WHO) has proposed to eradicate hepatitis C by the year 2030, although in Spain they are optimistic and, according to conclusions drawn from the International Congress on Dual Pathology, it is believed that this could be achieved by the year 2024.
Dr. Luis Morano of the Infectious Diseases Unit of the Álvaro Cunqueiro Hospital in Vigo assures that one of the main routes of infection of this pathology is drug addiction, which is responsible for between 60 and 80% of cases in Spain.
Despite the fact that the addicted population has a lower cure rate, due to the difficulty of follow-up, Dr. Morano comments that treatment is effective in practically 90% of those affected.