• Thursday, March 28, 2024
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Hepatitis outstrips AIDS, TB as killer: report

hapataitis

Virus-caused hepatitis has become a leading cause of death and disability in the world, killing more people in a year than AIDS, tuberculosis or malaria, a report said Thursday.

Deaths from infection, liver disease and cancer caused by viral hepatitis increased by 63 percent from 890,000 in 1990 to 1.45 million in 2013, according to a review of data collected in 183 countries.

By comparison, in 2013 there were 1.3 million deaths from AIDS, 1.4 million from tuberculosis, and 855,000 from malaria, said the report, published in The Lancet.

“Whereas deaths from many infectious diseases — such as TB and malaria — have dropped since 1990, viral hepatitis deaths have risen,” said study leader Graham Cooke from Imperial College London’s medicine department.