This week’s podcast features three interviews related to hepatitis.
Our guests are Ahmed Elsharkawy, consultant transplant hepatologist and honorary senior clinical lecturer at the University of Birmingham in the UK; Ziv Ben-Ari, director of the Liver Diseases Center at the Sheba Medical Center in Israel, and James McIlroy, chief executive officer at EnteroBiotix.
World Hepatitis Day
Taking place on July 28 every year, World Hepatitis Day unites the world under a single theme to raise awareness of the global burden of viral hepatitis with the intention of influencing real change. This year’s theme is ‘I Can’t Wait’.
Yesterday was the day people across the world were called upon to take action and raise awareness because as the these suggests, the disease waits for nobody.
According to the World Hepatitis Allegiance (WHA), a person dies every 30 seconds from a hepatitis related illness – even in the current COVID-19 crisis – there was no time to wait to act on viral hepatitis.
The WHA said the World Health Organization, governments, civil society, people with lived experience and others all come together yesterday to make an incredible impact online and in their communities.
Interviews
This week’s podcast hears from three people working in the field of liver disease including an advocate for World Hepatitis Day, people treating those with the disease and the founder of a company searching for cures.
Dr Ahmed Elsharkawy is a consultant transplant hepatologist and honorary senior clinical lecturer at the University of Birmingham and he is also chair of hepatitis B virus special interest group which is part of the British Association for the Study of the Liver. He is a strong supporter and advocate of World Hepatitis Day.
Professor Ziv Ben-Ari is director of the Center for Liver Diseases and Liver Research Laboratory at the Sheba Medical Center in Israel and Professor of Medicine at Tel-Aviv University.
She has more than 25 years of experience in evaluating candidates for liver transplantation and monitoring liver transplants including five years as a fellow in Hepatology and Liver Transplantation at the Royal Free Hospital, London. She has chaired the Israeli Liver Research Society, chairs the Liver Committee of the National Council of Gastroenterology and is an active member of the American and European Association for the Study of the Liver. She has published more than 175 studies in leading medical journals.
Dr James McIlroy is a qualified medical doctor and biopharmaceutical entrepreneur widely recognized as a pioneer and thought leader in the application of the microbiome to treat disease.
He founded EnteroBiotix with the vision of building one of the world’s leading microbiome drug development companies.