Hepatitis B vaccination will be open in Pereira for one more week

Until March 10, the intensification day for vaccination against hepatitis type B will take place in the city of Pereira, for which the Ministry of Public Health calls on what is considered a key population to come to receive the biological.

Remember that the vaccine is free and that is aimed at the following population groups:

Another aspect to keep in mind is that the doses are also applied to the migrant population, regardless of the legal status in which they are in the country.

Those who are interested can go from 1:00 pm to 5:00 pm to the headquarters of the Pereira Public Health Secretariat, which is located at 19 street number 5-33.

However, there is a possibility that the disease is transmitted from mother to child during childbirth; Therefore, it is estimated that 1,500,000 people are infected in the world each year, with a mortality rate calculated at 800,000 patients due to primary liver cancer or cirrhosis.

During the first days after having contracted the infection, most patients do not experience any kind of symptoms; although as the weeks go by, jaundice can appear, which is characterized by a yellowish coloration in the eyes and skin.

Among its symptoms, infected people may also experience extreme fatigue, nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain and a dark color in the urine.

Specialists indicate that despite suffering from the disease, there is good news for those patients who are infected with type B hepatitis in adulthood; given that the results of an adequate treatment allow to reach a high degree of effectiveness in which less than 5 percent of the people derive in chronic states.

However, the outlook for young children and infants is usually not so rosy, since in 95 percent of cases their health condition worsens and can even lead to death.

Given these circumstances, the main recommendation of the World Health Organization is vaccination, especially for population groups at risk, which achieve successful results in a range between 98 and 100 percent of cases.

Although in recent years there has been a considerable increase in infected patients in South America and some southern European countriesthe areas of the planet most affected by type B hepatitis are Sub-Saharan Africa, Asia and the Pacific Islands.

For Colombia, the numbers of patients with type B hepatitis are not good, considering that during the last year there was a 50 percent increase in cases compared to 2021.