Complacency about the spread of hepatitis B is resulting in its incidence rising in Ireland, a hepatitis study day in Dublin has been told. Dr Garry Courtney, a consultant gastroenterologist at St Luke's Hospital in Kilkenny, said yesterday that there had been an increase in cases in Dublin. In the 1980s, he explained, there was a hepatitis B epidemic, mainly among drug addicts. "I have a theory that we are now seeing a number of infected addicts returning from abroad to Dublin who are infecting the pool. It seems to be happening in the past year."
Hepatitis B was a virus that attacked the liver. It was transmitted by blood and sexual contact and could be prevented by a vaccination, he explained. Most people got over the virus but a small number went on to get cirrhosis and liver cancer.
He said doctors were seeing an increase in the number of cases because there was a complacency about education, vaccination and the use of clean needles by drug abusers. "They vaccinated susceptible groups in the 1980s, and a number of homosexuals were getting themselves vaccinated because of the high awareness of the dangers. Now people are not aware of the dangers."
Dr Alan Shattock, a senior lecturer at the Department of Medical Microbiology in UCD, said an increase had been seen in test results by the Virus Reference Laboratory in UCD over the last year or so.
"Prior to this the graph has been going downwards since the highs of the 1980s, when it peaked at over 500 cases," Dr Shattock told the conference, organised by SmithKline Beecham.
But he said it was a modest increase off the baseline of about 40 cases a year. "But it is really too early in the year to say with any certainty, and we would need longer to see if it is a true increase."
Dr Courtney said the first case of a hepatitis B mutant had been detected here recently, whereby a regular test for the virus had proved negative even though the person was infected.
"It was in fact a person from Sierra Leone that had been tested. Now I do not want to add to the hype about immigrants, but you have to be aware that where there are immigrants there could be more mutants introduced."