Hepatitis

Hepatitis is a group of infectious diseases known as Hepatitis A, B, C, D, and E

A vaccine for hepatitis B was approved in 1981. The vaccine had been developed at Merck Institute for Therapeutic Research.

James Earl Ray was serving his sentence in prison for killing Martin Luther King, when  he died of hepatitis C in 1998.

In 2012, a Guinness World Record was created when 12,588 people from 20 countries did the Three Wise Monkeys actions on World Hepatitis Day to signify the willful ignorance of the disease.

Hepatitis C is an infectious disease caused by the hepatitis C virus (HCV) that primarily affects the liver. 

Seminal experiments by Harvey Alter, Michael Houghton and Charles Rice led to the discovery of HCV as the causative agent of hepatitis C.  

By Guido4 - Own work,

Houghton, Alter, and Rice, were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine on October 5, 2020 for their work.

Michael Houghton declined the  2013 Canada Gairdner International Award, worth $100,000, for his contribution to the discovery of the hepatitis C virus because they wouldn't include two other co-discoverers.

Spanish anesthetist Juan Maeso was jailed after he infected 275 patients with hepatitis C between 1988 and 1997 as he used the same needles to give both himself and the patients opioids.

Hepatitis affects hundreds of millions of people worldwide, causing acute and chronic disease and killing close to 1.34 million people every year. 

An estimated 71 million people (1%) worldwide are infected with hepatitis C as of 2017. It occurs most commonly in Africa and Central and East Asia.

World Hepatitis Day, held on July 28, is coordinated by the World Hepatitis Alliance to raise global awareness of hepatitis and encourage prevention, diagnosis and treatment.