Ministry launches H-Cube to create awareness on Hepatitis and HIV
The health ministry has launched the awareness campaign H-Cube, co-financed by the European Commission, to create awareness on Hepatitis B and C, and HIV.
Parliamentary assistant Peter Micallef said the campaign would reach out to youths and young adults in their homes, their workplaces, educational centres and their areas of recreation. Outreach programmes will take place together with the Medical Students Association from the University of Malta.
The H-Cube campaign will take place over the next 30 months in 11 member states from the south and east, namely Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Romania, Slovenia, and Italy.
The campaign is aimed at teenagers and adults aged 15 to 24. In 2007 there were 50,000 new cases of HIV in the EU and neighbouring countries, while 2 million live with HIV or Aids, with a prevalence rate of 0.1% to 2% in Europe alone.
There were also 6,500 new cases of Hepatitis B and 30,000 cases of Hepatitis C.
In Eastern Europe, cases of HIV and Aids are already increasing at the alarming rate of 30%-50%, while 70% of cases in neighbouring countries art not aware of the virus they are carrying.
The European Centre for Disease Control estimates around 2 billion in the world are infected by Hepatitis B, 350 million of whom have a chronic infection, while 170 million have had contact with Hepatitis C.
