This July 28, on World Hepatitis Day 2025, Women4GlobalFund (W4GF) joins the global call to action under the theme: “Hepatitis: Let’s Break It Down.”
What is Hepatitis? Let’s Break it Down:
- Hepatitis is a group of infectious diseases that attack the liver, often silently — but with serious consequences.
- Hepatitis B and Hepatitis C, can become chronic, leading to cirrhosis, liver failure, or cancer.
- 🧬 Hepatitis B (HBV) : Blood, unprotected sex, and vertical transmission during childbirth
- 🧬 Hepatitis C (HCV) Unsafe blood transfusions, shared needles or paraphernalia, or non-sterile medical procedures
- Over 1.3 million people die from hepatitis-related causes each year—one death every 30 seconds.
- Many women remain undiagnosed and lack access to treatment, women who use drugs, transgender women, and women living with HIV are at most risk
- (Source: WHO Global Hepatitis Report 2024)
Why Hepatitis Is a Gender Issue:
Hepatitis doesn’t affect everyone equally: Women living with HIV are more vulnerable to hepatitis and often excluded from integrated care facing unique barriers to prevention, diagnosis, and treatment—especially in contexts shaped by inequality, stigma, and exclusion:
- Women & girls living or affected by HIV, TB or malaria face low access to testing services and vaccines
- Lack of integrated services in maternal and sexual and reproductive health care.
- Vertical transmission remains a major concern.
W4GF calls for gender-transformative strategies & urges governments, health institutions to:
- Make gender equality central to HIV and hepatitis comprehensive policies and programming
- Invest in women led services, advocacy and movement-building
- Invest in programmes that eliminate stigma and discrimination that prevent access to services
This 28 July, raise your voice and demand a world free of hepatitis.
Read & share our full fact sheet here: