Since January, 105 new cases of Hepatitis A have been documented in the Greater Lisbon area. During the course of last year 40 cases were registered throughout the country.
The DGS has said the surge is likely to be directly related to the growing trend of ‘chemsex’, which is having sexual relations under the influence of chemical substances to last longer, in some instances for days, and involving multiple partners.
The sexual activity is largely undertaken by gay men.
The DGS has said a similar scenario has been noted in a dozen other European countries.
“Last year in Europe we began to see abnormal activity in the disease. It seems to have originated in the Netherlands and then spread to other countries. The UK was the first to report an increase in the number of cases and currently there are about 13 countries reporting this increase, including Portugal. To give you a sense of the magnitude, last year we had six [new] cases reported and now we have a hundred” Isabel Aldir, the director of the DGS’s national programme for viral hepatitis told Lusa News Agency.
According to Ms. Aldir, the situation of this “epidemic activity seems to be very often associated” with sexual transmission through certain practices, especially among men, which increase the risk of spreading of the disease.
“This can happen to any individual with any sexual orientation, but what has been so far described, in fact, is a predominance of cases in men - not exclusively - but comparatively many more cases in males than females. And among males, men who have sex with men seem to be more affected,” explained the DGS spokesperson.
The main form of contagion, she said, is through the faecal-oral route.
Isabel Aldir argues that information and knowledge about what action to take to reduce the risk of contagion are the most efficient ways of tackling the spread of the disease.
“Good personal and domestic hygiene and proper hand-washing when preparing meals or going to the bathroom are among the most efficient measures. And because in this particular situation the route of sexual transmission has been pointed out, it is in fact in their sex life that each individual should adopt measures for risk reduction”, she warned.
Unlike hepatitis B and hepatitis C, which can become chronic, hepatitis A is a “self-limiting, curable and benign disease,” Ms. Aldir explains, adding: “It has no specific treatment other than resting, not drinking alcohol or avoiding taking medications that may be aggressive to the liver.
“It has its normal cycle of disease and then there is a full recovery to the individual’s previous state of health”, she concluded.