Tuesday, March 31, 2009

fight hepatitis...protect yourself!

Finally! I'm fully protected against Hepatitis A & B. Last Sunday, I had the third and the last shot of my vaccine at Kinetics Medical Clinic. Since I love eating street-foods, like tokneneng (the quail egg wrapped in orange-thingy) and deep-fried octopus tentacles, I decided that I must have this protection. Now, I only need to remember to have my booster after five years, jeje! To do some public service here I did an extensive research (...err, reading from the clinic's leaftlets) about Hepa A & B. May these basic infos will be somehow helpful...

HEPATITIS A

*MODE OF TRANSMISSION: intake of contaminated food or water; person-to-person direct transmission

*SYMPTOMS: severity varies with the individual: include fever, loss of appetite, weight loss, physical weakness, vomiting, headache, muscle aches. in severe cases: jaundice, tea-coloured urine, etc.

*LONG-TERM IMPACT: children and young patients can recover automatically without any long-term impact. the convalescent period takes months and some patients can suffer from relapses. in severe cases, patients may be hospitalized for weeks.

*VACCINATION SCHEDULE: first shot-on any designated day; second shot-six to twelve months after the first shot



HEPATITIS B

*MODE OF TRANSMISSION: mother-to-infant transmission at or around the time of delivery; blood contact; sexual contact

*SYMPTOMS: similar to hepatitis A

*LONG-TERM IMPACT: five percent of people infected with hepatitis B will become chronic carriers, of which one-fourth will finally die of liver cancer or cirrhosis.

* VACCINATION SCHEDULE: first shot-on any designated day; second shot-one month after the first shot, third shot-six months after the first shot

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