Dr. Mohammed Hammed Alhadad 

Aden 
The ultimate goal of any process of health development is to enable people to reach a specific level where they will be able to participate actively in the construction of the social and economic life of their societies. We can only achieve this through ethical application of the primary meaningful health care in a way that is available to all and, especially to those more liable to danger. So every one should take an active role in the effort to promote health and take care of it in a very organized and constructive way. Therefore we have always, on all occasions, emphasized the need to maintain such guidelines. The aim of this article is to stress the importance of improving and enhancing health care principles, so as to raise the people's awareness of the immunization process of the viral hepatitis. 
What is this disease? How does it spread? What are its symptoms and dangerous complications? Are there any precautions that can be used to stop this disease? 

THE DISEASE: 
Hepatitis is caused by a virus which one may contract through the blood or through the other liquids in the body. This disease is very dangerous. It haunts the minds of people since there is no cure for it until now. 

INCUBATION: 
It is the period between contracting the disease until the appearing of the symptoms. It is estimated to occur from 45-160 days but in most cases it is from 60-90 days. 

EPIDEMIC ENVIRONMENTAL ELEMENTS: 
The specialists in this field divide the world to three epidemic sections: high, average and low regarding the spread of this virus. There is a strong concern about environment and vaccination for protection from the disease. In fact, according to the number of people affected and the magnitude of the spread of the disease strategies are devised for protection. 

HOW THE DISEASE IS SPREAD: 
It happens in the following ways: in the transfusion of the blood which already contains the virus, when giving injections, using sharp tools that are used before, cupping, tattooing and by unclean wounds. It also happens when there are unsecured births and when having illegal sexual intercourse. The horrible end of all this, is a dangerous disease that leads at the end to certain death. 
SYMPTOMS OF THE DISEASE: 
The symptoms of this disease are fever, colic accompanied by throwing up, loss of appetite, and sometimes pains in the joints. This scarcely develops into the appearance of jaundice. 

WHEN YOU ARE AFFECTED: 
When some one contracts this virus he may get a terrible hepatitis that will result in his death within few days or weeks. He may also recover soon and get immunity. In extreme or chronic cases, the liver may become cirrhotic or lead to cases. 

PROTECTION: 
For protection we can follow these procedures: taking care of our environment and keep it always clean, taking vaccinations, making sure that blood does not carry this virus, not using injections more than once, getting rid of sharp tools, antisepticize medical tools, not using others' tools and obtaining from illegal sexual intercourse and use of condoms should be used. 

HOW TO FIGHT THIS DISEASE: 
This depends upon health organizations that are specialized in this field. It also differs from one place to another according to the size of the problem, the number of the people affected, the spread of the disease and the main districts it is spread in. 
It is worth mentioning that the International health organization aims at including this disease among the six children's diseases that should be vaccinated. This is why we see it supporting programs that carry out this mission with a humanitarian aim to protect children of the world and take care of their health. The target groups are the medical group, health group, technical group, working group, all those carry the virus, emergency team, police, fire brigade, workers of the municipality, patients whom have nephritic washing, those who have sex in an illegal way, those addicted to narcotics and those interested in traveling around the world. 

PROCEDURES TO ENSURE HEALTH PROTECTION: 
1- Specify those who are more liable to get this disease. 
2- Launch informative campaign aimed at making people aware of this disease and provide vaccinations for the the affected people. 
3- Organizing the vaccination process by making colored cards for each age group and making files for the vaccination process. 
4- The vaccination should be either in the thigh or in the hand's upper muscle. The infant whose mother is affected should be vaccinated after 12 hours of their birth while those whose mothers are not affected should have the first dose after a month of his birth, the second after a month of the first dose and the third after six months of the first dose. 
5- The vaccinations should be kept and carried by vaccination-keepers with bars of ice within 4-8 c¡. They should also be kept in special fridges. 

RESULTS AND GENERAL OBSERVATIONS: 
1- Vaccination gives immunity for about seven weeks or more. 
2- Vaccination gets 90% positive results of the overall number of vaccinated cases. 
3- The complications resulted from vaccination are simple and soon disappears. 
4- Regarding the number of doses there two opinions: the first says that all doses should be taken all. The second opinion indicates that only one dose is to be taken. Statistics shows that 23% of pregnant women and 14% of children of in different ages are affected by this virus. 

GENERAL OBSERVATIONS: 
1- "YES" for vaccination when the results of the check-ups are negative regarding Anti-HBc, HBsAg and Anti-HBs, HBsAg. 
2- There is no need for the vaccination when the result of the check-ups is different form the above. 
3- Health organizations emphasize that vaccination is safe and has not any dangerous complications. The focus is on the children, pregnant mothers. The vaccination is available in all hospitals in Aden and there are also well qualified doctors who are taking care of this 
 . 

During my visit to Hodiedah and in one of my strolls in the city's streets, I found out two hospitals carrying similar names. One was Al-Salalm Hospital and the other Dar Al-Salam Asylum. So I decided to drop by the latter and there I was indescribably shocked. Many innocent and poor people have been mercilessly locked in a prison-like asylum or hospital as the officials call where only overcrowdedness can suffocate, let alone the scathing heat known in Hodiedah during summer. 

Among these innocent creatures, there are some who are mentally and/or psychologically disturbed patients, but once they are thrown into this house, they might suffer new afflictions. It looks is if they were brought here just to be dispensed with. 
In order to know more about these victims, I talked to some of them and came up with the following reports: 

Ridhwan Mohamed Hassan, 32, has been in the "hospital" for three months. He says that he has been suffering from psychiatric disease due to family problems and since he came into the hospital he has been administered some medication and so far he feels better as he puts it himself. He only complains that some of the house's doctors are real "nuts" and their treatments with the patients are inhumanely bad and certainly could aggravate the ailing conditions of the patients. 

Abdullah Mohammed Mastor, 55, says that he was forced into the house by sheer mistake. As he explains, more than a month ago, he wanted to go to Al-Salam Hospital to see a dermatologist ( he was then suffering from a skin disease.) On his way to the hospital he met a police officer who took him to Dar Al-Salam instead. Mr. Mastor has been in this place for over a month waiting for the officer to take him out of this place and praying that his stay would not become long. 

Abdulrahman, one of the house "prisoners" as he would call it himself, says that he does not know why he is in there. He complains of no ailment and hitherto has received no medical attention at all. His story began last Ramadhan when one of his neighbors, Ahmed Al-Forn, brought him to the house and left him there. He pleaded that his case should be attended to and his suffering ended to enable him to go home and take care of his kids and family. He described the people of the house as monsters. 

However, there are some amongst the house mates who give some credit to Dar Al-Salam. One of them is a medical graduate student who preferred to remain unidentified. He used to work in a public hospital and because of bad company he got addicted to a certain kind of narcotics. When it became too hard on him, specially after he tried to stop using drugs, he was taken to Dar Al-Salam for treatment. That was two months ago and now he feels a lot better. He admits that he received special treatments and has his own private room, though he pays YR. 700 per day, excluding medications expenses. He sincerely urged me to convey his advice to the young people in Yemen to become aware of the deadly consequences of drug addiction. He also expressed sympathy with the helpless mates of the house and said that many of them are put in the wrong place. 

In some cases I find it hard to believe or understand. For example, I came across a whole family consisting of the two parents, three kids and one on his/her way as the mother is expecting a baby. When I asked the father about their story, he said he had no idea why they were there. He said he was the first to be admitted in this place and later on was able to manage the admittance of the rest of the family. "Now I feel quite comfortable." he concluded. 
There are many women inside the house. One of them, an old woman was crying for want of clothes. I noticed that many of them were wearing ragged and dirty garb. In short the situation for most cases in this house is inhumanely disgraceful. They just want to be treated as humans and are waiting for someone who can bring forth their cases and defend their basic rights of life and dignity. We in the Yemen Times urgently request Human Rights Commissions and Activists to embrace this important issue and start with a field inspection visit to Dar Al-Salam house to see for themselves how human beings are turned into monsters. 

By: Akram Abdulrahman Ahmed 
Yemen Times