Maori men elusive in hunt for carriers of hepatitis B

By ANGELA GREGORY health reporter

Maori women are being encouraged to take a jab at the men in their lives.

Health officials are worried that they are not reaching enough Maori men, particularly in cities, in the fight against the spread of hepatitis B.

They want at-risk people to take a blood test to assess whether they have immunity against the potentially deadly disease which, if left untreated, can result in cirrhosis of the liver and liver cancer.

The northern regional hepatitis B screening programme's project director, Dr Chris Bullen, said the most difficult to access had been Maori men, who tended to not go to the doctor.

"Traditionally Maori women look after the health of the whanau and they need to encourage their men to take a simple and free blood test."

Dr Bullen said about 55,000 people had been screened in the first year of the programme - about one-third of those targeted.

Pacific Islanders, Maori and Asians were most at risk of contracting the disease.

Dr Bullen said about half the targeted Pacific people and close to half the targeted Asians had been reached so far. But there had been only a 15 per cent recruitment of eligible Maori.

"We are pretty comfortable with our reach so far with the Asian and Pacific Island people, but Maori men in Auckland are tricky because they don't have a focal meeting point."

Pacific Islanders had been targeted through city churches, and Asians made relatively high use of doctors, where they could be screened for hepatitis.

Dr Bullen said creative methods such as radio and kapa haka would be used to spread the message.

The screening focused on at-risk people aged over 15 years as those younger would have been vaccinated as babies.

Up to 10 per cent of carriers would not know they had the virus as in many cases it did not produce symptoms.

Dr Bullen said so far 8 per cent of the total tested were found to carry hepatitis B. Of those 53 per cent were immune.

Among Maori 7 per cent carried the disease. Of those 59 per cent were immune.

Dr Bullen said those who were not immune were advised to make the most of the free immunisations to protect themselves and their whanau.

nzherald.co.nz/health