Viral Hepatitis E (HEV) series & Nepal - My memory: Getting yellow with liver pain ( Part 1)

Let us welcome the year 2015 !! My only wish is to turn this year into a meaningful scientific discourse on what I want to learn more about in the field of infectious disease in Nepal. Last year was pretty meaningful that I regularly posted short write ups and sometime, referenced articles, which were related with Nepal. One aspect that I have learnt from blog writing is that we need to be regular and keep writing what pops up in our mind. You know, our mind is so beautiful which is a vessel filled with lots of ideas - interesting, funny, sometime negative silly thoughts. But to introspect the flow of our thoughts and trap those thoughts in black and white letters in a paper is so powerful. This is why writers are born, poets create masterpieces, great scientist work on their simple unique and bold idea passionately. I know, I learnt its value very late but to write with passion, there is no time boundary. You can write anything anywhere and anytime. Just you need to be habituated to carry your pen and a notebook all the time. This is so simple when I say or advise others, "You need to start writing regularly" but for me, this has been a long pause of learning, lots of time wasted just doing nothing. Now when I look back over time alleys, I can calculate the time wasted - now there is no time left to be wasted !!

This first quarter of the year, I have vowed to write about viral hepatitis (viral infection of your liver!!). You know this disease may be new to you and may be you may just brush aside saying, "Well, this is none of my business!!" If you are thinking in that line, wait a minute !! Let me share you my suffering from this disease and you know, you are also susceptible to this diseases. Why? This diseases is rampant in low income settings. Also, you may be avid hiker or trekker and you may have a plan to travel to these countries like Nepal, India. Pakistan. Here this disease is common. When you get infected, whatever a person with strength and stamina you may be, you will be bed ridden so quick that you have to get hospitalized for few weeks. During this illness, you feel so miserable that completely loose your appetite, lethargic, aversion to anything food or even its smell, and you turn yellow including your white of your eye bulb. Oh yes again, this disease is miserable, and it is said, this disease take hold in your body after you ingest food or drinks that are contaminated with human soils. This happens in places, where when there is poor water supply, sanitation and hygiene practices. Remember, this may take the form of outbreaks affecting hundreds and thousands of people. The worst part is if this disease affect pregnant women. There is high chance of loosing your pregnancy and even death of mothers due to liver complications that lead to fulminant hepatic failure and painful death. We know, this disease has not caught much of global attention like recent Ebola Virus Diseases, but remember, this disease is like a silent death that spread invisibly like bush fire with huge toll of illnesses and deaths in developing countries among impoverished population. And you know, I was one of the victim to this waterborne illness fortunate enough to write this piece of story, so if you want to know more of this disease, who could be seriously the best resource than me??

Jan 10, 2015
ABC