December 2022 Update
To our faithful partners around the world.
Season’s greetings to all of you!
We pray for peace on earth and good health to each of you as we approach the end of 2022. We are happy to report that HepBFree completed our first team trip to one of our overseas projects since the start of the pandemic curtailed our travel.
During our trip to Kiribati from October 31-November 10, 2022, our group of 3 doctors and 2 nurses made a number of accomplishments:
We provided direct patient care in 2 hospitals on the main island of South Tarawa and at 3 villages in one of the outer islands. This care included upper endoscopy, colonoscopy, attending rounds on the internal medicine wards, hepatitis B clinics at each location, Fibroscan (to determine if liver fibrosis or cirrhosis is present), ultrasound evaluation, lab testing using point of care tests for hepatitis B, and distribution of anti-virals for hepatitis B.
We donated over 6000 rapid hepatitis B test kits.
We started over 100 patients on anti-viral treatment for hepatitis B.
We donated 3 Olympus 190 endoscopes and a colonoscope. Endoscopy had not been available in Kiribati for over 3 years because of lack of equipment.
We trained several local physicians to perform upper endoscopy and colonoscopy.
We performed 18 upper endoscopies, including banding of varices and 2 colonoscopies, which revealed a colon cancer in one patient.
We tested over 500 patients in the outer islands for hepatitis B. Seventy-four of these were positive (prevalence of about 15%) and were started on treatment.
We met with the nation’s Minister of Health and discussed further funding opportunities and strategies to eradicate hepatitis from the country.
We coordinated our efforts with other organizations working in Kiribati on antenatal care and tuberculosis surveillance by offering hepatitis test kits to their projects.
As always, we were struck by the lack of resources that are available, particularly in the outer islands. All treatment for hepatitis, which affects about 15% of the population, is a result of the generous donations that you have made. We plan to continue our efforts to secure additional grants, as our previous grant has now been completed. We will return for our next trip in the summer of 2023.
The new year plans to be busy for us as we juggle our “day jobs” along with trips to our projects. In February and March we will visit Papua New Guinea with hopes of expanding our presence to the capital, Port Moresby, and Milne Bay. In April two of our team will travel to Madagascar to investigate the initiation of a new hepatitis project there.
We thank you for your gracious and faithful support over many years. We look forward to regaining the momentum that we lost during the pandemic and working with you to eradicate hepatitis around the world.
With gratitude,
David Hilmers and the HepBFree Team
