Jun 26, 2007 9:49 pm US/Pacific
Hepatitis B Prevention Cutbacks In Santa Clara Co.
by Thuy Vu
SAN JOSE (CBS 5) ―
It's called the "silent killer" in the Asian American community: chronic hepatitis B, which can lead to cirrhosis or liver cancer.
"Those people who are chronically infected usually have no symptoms," said Dr. Sam So of the Stanford Asian Liver Center. "Usually by the time they get sick by feeling pain to the belly or becoming jaundiced, it's usually a very advanced disease."
Santa Clara County has the highest rate of babies born to infected mothers in the country.
But county supervisors are slashing the perinatal hepatitis B prevention program to help erase a budget deficit.
In the past few years, the program has been cut from five staff members to two, and now, down to one.
"This is really very disturbing because the Santa Clara county perinatal hepatitis B program used to be a model for the rest of the country," Dr. So said.
"We cannot continue to salvage it without the funding stream from the state, which is the largest funder," Santa Clara Co. Supervisor Liz Kniss said.
About one in ten Asian Americans have hepatitis B, mostly because they weren't vaccinated at birth.
And 92 percent of infected pregnant women in this country are Asian.
Supervisor Kniss says health services will still be provided, with support from county hospitals.
"We still have a public health nurse and surveillance will continue to be done for anyone infected with hepatitis B by our physicians and attending staff," Kniss said.
But Dr. So says there's no way one staff member alone can manage the county's 400 high-risk hepatitis B cases.
"The prevalence of chronic hepatitis B and liver cancer is recognized as the greatest health disparity for Asian Americans in this country," Dr. So said.
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