HepatitisWA Newsletter (Sept 2012)

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contents Exchange Program A Prickly Subject........................................................................................................ 4 The ACT will become the first jurisdiction in Australia to provide clean syringes to prison inmates.

Hepatitis Awareness Week Highlights.................................................................................................... 6 Highlights from HepatitisWA’s workshops and events during Hepatitis Awareness Week and World Hepatitis Day.

HepatitisWA Celebrates 20 Years.................................................................................................................... 8 HepatitisWA Celebrates it’s 20th Year of evolution at the Empyrean, with Body Armour by Ilbijerri Theatre Company.

Body Armour Tours WA Feature........................................................................................................................ 10 Ilbijerri Theatre Company’s Body Armour tours Western Australia.

Bristal-Myers Drops Hep C Drug After Death............................................................................12 Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. (BMY) has abandoned an experimental hepatitis C pill after a patient died.

Injecting Habits of Young People..................................................................................................................14 WASUA’s Domain (WA Substance User’s Association).

Love Your Liver Roast Lamb with Pears Recipe......................................................................18 Lover Your Liver featured recipe.

Hurricane..............................................................................................................................................................................................19 Non-alcoholic drink featured recipe.

HEPATITISWA Newsletter // Sept 2012

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Hepatitis

AWARENESS WEEK

HIGHLIGHTS

HepatitisWA had an extremely busy month leading-up to Hepatitis Awareness Week (July 23rd - 28th) and World Hepatitis Day (July 28th), organizing various workshops and events.

Below are some highlights of what we did during Awareness Week, and on World Hepatitis Day. Choice winner. We also presented “thank you” certificates to all participants and agencies involved.

As a result of the creative display, the Central Institute of Technology asked to keep the exhibit open for an extra week to showcase privately to the students at their institute.

“Street Art” Showcase Gallery (23rd - 28th July) HepatitisWA implemented a health promotion initiative called “Street Art 2012”, where we partnered with two youth organisations (HALO and Outcare Youth).

The agency’s young people participated in workshops on viral hepatitis and street art before producing their own art piece based on issues related to hepatitis. Their pieces were

“Love Your Liver” Client Lunch (24th July) A “Love Your Liver” client lunch was held at Veggie Mama’s,

showcased at an exhibit at the Central Institute of Technology.

a cafe who specialize in wholesome healthy vegetarian food.

The exhibit was launched on Monday 23rd July and ran until

Nine of us - seven clients and 2 staff, dined on food such as

Saturday the 28th July.

veggie patties, quiche, and pastries followed by fresh juice,

It was an opportunity for the public to appreciate the artwork

coffee and of course cake. We also used this as a forum to

and health promotion initiatives of the young participants.

discuss thoughts, feelings, and experiences in relation to

Prizes were presented to the winner including The People’s

hepatitis C and B. Overall it was an experience enjoyed by all.

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HEPATITISWA Newsletter // Sept 2012

Educational Viral Hepatitis Workshop (25th July) HepatitisWA ran an education workshop at Kuditj Café on the

PlayTheBloodRule.com Basketball Game HepatitisWA/Redbacks (28th July)

importance of liver health to highlight the 2012 Hepatitis

The Perth Redbacks played their final game for the season at

Awareness Week theme of “Love Your Liver”.

the Active West Stadium in Geraldton.

Sixteen attendees came including drug and alcohol workers, mental health workers, region community health workers, prison staff and clinic health workers.

The content of the workshop focused on

The event was open to the public, and HepatitisWA was identified as a sponsor with signage and promotion of the “PlayTheBloodRule.com” website on each players’ jersey.

strategies to

improve liver health and the general health outcomes of people living with viral hepatitis.

CaLD Workshops (28th & 29th July) The Hepatitis B Community Development Officer provided two information sessions in the regional town of Katanning for Hepatitis Awareness Week.

Free “Love Your Liver” Soup Stall (25th July) HepatitisWA had a soup stall out the front of our premises, where we gave out 2 different types of healthy soup options taken from the “Love Your Liver” website – one was the pumpkin and carrot recipe, and the other was the vegetable soup recipe.

We staffed the stall from 11am to 3pm, and gave away approximately 100 cups of soup branded with a “Love Your Liver” sticker.

In all, it was a great opportunity to serve our local community and offer them some of our resources in the process, while raising our profile.

“Love Your Liver” Lunch at Hakea Prison & Outcare (26th & 27th July) HepatitisWA provided a healthy lunch at both Hakea Prison and Outcare to promote healthy eating in the community.

The session on Saturday 28th July was attended by fourteen Burmese and one person of Chin background while fifty people of Karen background attended the session on Sunday 29th July.

HepatitisWA launched its trial of a GP Handycard at the sessions.

The GP Handycard has been developed in

partnership with Cancer Council WA and is designed for people of CaLD background to take to their GP to request hepatitis B testing.

Regional Community Grants In collaboration with the Drug and Alcohol Office and the BBV Yarning project, HepatitisWA provided community grants of up to $2000 for agencies to host an event during Hepatitis Awareness Week with an Aboriginal focus. These grants were awarded to nine community organisations and the events were carried out across Western Australia.

BY FELICIA BRADLEY

Sept 17tH 2012

HEPATITISWA

CELEBRATES

20 YEARS

S

eptember 17th, 2012 marked the 20th Year of

Control Directorate, and Stuart Loveday, Chairperson

the evolution of HepatitisWA. Celebrating our

of Hepatitis Australia, reiterated the main messages of

milestone in style at The Empyrean, it was

dedication and support from all, reflected in our book.

an eventful afternoon for all who attended.

All were entertained with a performance by Ilbijerri’s Body Armour, then later reunited with colleagues in a relaxed atmosphere of beautiful Western Australian wildflower centerpieces, while indulging some delightful cupcakes with our logos on them.

Food and drinks were served along with delicious cupcakes.

Among the 70 attendees were past staff, board members, volunteers

of

HepatitisWA, fellow

agency

members,

members of the Western Australian Health Department, WA AIDS Council, WASUA, and supporters.

We were overwhelmed by positive feedback after the event

A “Welcome to Country” was made by Aboriginal elder Mingli,

and would like to thank everyone that attended our 20th

which then was followed by a performance of Body Armour

birthday.

by the Ilbijerri Theatre Company of Victoria. The play lasted 50 minutes, but kept all 70 attendees captivated. Please read our feature-spread for a detailed synopsis.

HepatitisWA released a self published book entitled “Growing and Regenerating Across 20 Years”. All attendees were

Thank you to WED for the beautiful Western Australian flower arrangements, and Cupcake Cravers for the delicious customised cupcake tower!

“Well done (HepatitisWA) on a fantastic

encouraged to take a copy, as the book documents the stories

celebration yesterday. I really enjoyed the

of some of the “movers and shakers” of HepatitisWA over the

play and the book is great and I will enjoy

20 years.

reading it again in 5 years, 10 years and

A cascade of short speeches from Frank Farmer, the Executive

another 20 years. Everyone should be

Director of HepatitisWA, Susan Carruthers, Chairperson of

proud.”

HepatitisWA, Dr Charles Watson, Patron of HepatitisWA, Dr Paul Armstrong, Director of Communicable Disease 8

BY FELICIA BRADLEY

HEPATITISWA Newsletter // Sept 2012

Quotes are taken from attendees of the HepatitisWA 20 Years Celebration. Photography by Felicia Bradley © 2012.

BRISTAL-MYERS DROPS

HEP C DRUG AFTER DEATH

B

ristol-Myers Squibb Co. (BMY) has abandoned an experimental hepatitis C pill it bought for $2.5 billion earlier this year after one patient died and others were hospitalized while taking the drug in a study.

Bristol-Myers will take a charge of $1.8 billion in the third quarter related to research and development of the therapy, the New York-based company said in a regulatory filing today. The drugmaker suspended testing the medicine, known as BMS-986094 on August 1, after a patient developed heart failure.

Bristol-Myers said yesterday (August 23rd, 2012) it has discontinued development of the drug, part of a class of medicines called nucleotide polymerase inhibitors, and was consulting with U.S. regulators to assess the treatment’s effects.

Along with the death, eight patients suffered from heart and kidney toxicity, the company said in a statement.

“Bristol-Myers paid a fortune for a pearl that turns out to be fake,” said Erik Gordon, a University of Michigan business professor, who follows the health industry, in an e-mail today, referring to the company’s “string of pearls” name for its acquisition strategy. “The Inhibitex acquisition shows the dangers of paying huge premiums for late-stage drug candidates in hot areas. They still can fail.”

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Bristol-Myers rose (BMY) 1.3 percent to $32.57 at the close in New York.

Key Therapy The hepatitis C drug was thought by researchers and analysts to be a key therapy in a push by companies, including Gilead Sciences Inc. (GILD) and Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc. (VRTX), to replace the standard injectable treatment with pills that are more convenient and have fewer side effects. Analysts estimate the market may be $20 billion for the new therapies.

“We’re still focused on our HCV development program, and will continue to follow the science as we execute on our strategy”, Cristi Barnett, a Bristol-Myers spokeswoman, said in an interview. “We’re going to do whatever it takes to get the best treatment to patients.”

Two of the eight patients from the study remain hospitalized, Bristol-Myers said in its statement.

Hepatitis C is a viral infection that can cause liver damage and is estimated to affect 180 million people worldwide, according to the National Institutes of Health. The disease can lay dormant for decades before harming patients. Rising deaths among baby boomers from the infection prompted U.S. health officials to declare in May that all of those born from 1946 to 1964 are at risk and should be tested.

HEPATITISWA Newsletter // Sept 2012

Source: Flinn, R, 2012. Bloomberg Businessweek. Image available under a creative commons license at www.sxc.hu. Photography by Esther Groen © 2005.

Clinical Hold After Bristol-Myers earlier this month suspended its mid-stage trial of BMS-986094, the Food and Drug Administration put a clinical hold on Idenix Pharmaceuticals Inc. (IDIX)’s testing of a similar therapy, IDX 184. The agency was looking at others as well, Idenix Chief Executive Officer, Ron Renaud, said on August 16.

Gilead, which spent $10.8 billion to acquire its nucleotide polymerase inhibitor GS-7977, hasn’t had the same safety issues, said Cara Miller, a company spokeswoman.

“In all studies to date, GS-7977 has been well tolerated and has exhibited a favourable safety profile”, Miller said.

Vertex hasn’t been contacted by the FDA regarding safety issues for its nucleotide polymerase inhibitor drug, said Megan Pace, a company spokeswoman.

“Our drug is structurally different” than those from Bristol-Myers and Idenix, Pace said in a telephone interview. “We’re moving forward with our studies.”

Vertex shares fell less than 1 percent to $53.56.

Gilead rose 2.2 percent to $57.29. Idenix fell 1.3 percent to $6.01.

Inhibitex Purchase Bristol-Myers gained the compound in January with the acquisition of Inhibitex Inc. as it seeks new drugs to diversify its products and replace revenue from Plavix, its best-selling drug, that lost patent protection this year. Plavix generated $7.09 billion in 2011, about onethird of the drugmaker’s revenue.

In July, another of the company’s experimental prospects, the blood thinner Eliquis being developed with Pfizer Inc. (PFE), was rejected

by U.S. regulators, who asked for more data from existing trials. Approval of the drug may be pushed into next year, according to the company, and the diabetes drug dapagliflozin was rejected in January when the FDA asked for more safety information.

BY RYAN FLINN August 24, 2012 for Bloomberg Businessweek. http://tinyurl.com/bms-drops-hepc-drug

HEPATITISWA Newsletter // Sept 2012

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Injecting habits of

Young people

W

ASUA conducted a workshop for young people to canvass their knowledge around injecting behaviours amongst their peer group (17-27 years of age) and their knowledge about hepatitis C and the treatment for this disease.

After talking to young people about their injecting drug use, it was interesting to observe their participation in the group and what information they shared with the group. From our experience as outreach workers, who visit and educate young people in their own homes on matters around safe injecting procedures, hepatitis C transmission and information on hepatitis C treatments, it was obvious that some of the young people described best practice advice from what they had learned but we were able to see that they often did not put this information into practice.

For instance, three quarters of the young people interviewed were able to say that they always swabbed before injecting and some again afterwards. However, from our observations as outreach workers, many do not undertake this most elementary procedure to prevent unsterile injections and thus prevent blood infections (septicaemia) or dirty hits.

There was the notion also that because they had good hygiene practices (e.g. washing hands or clean storage of injecting gear) that it was not necessary to swab. So further education on the importance of swabbing is always going to be an ongoing issue, with the importance of describing good hygiene practices as well as STERILE procedures.

It was encouraging to hear the amount of young people who claimed that they made it a primary concern to always use a clean needle and syringe when injecting. However, from our experience as outreach workers, many young people report that their friends are not aware or rather, DON’T CARE, about using clean fits every time they inject. They often rely on their peers or young friends that do go to needle exchanges to provide them with a fit. And if there isn’t a clean fit then they will use their mate’s equipment. This can even extend to rummaging through bins, drawers, cupboards, etc. where their friend may have stored their dirty used fits. This was especially prevalent amongst users who were given opportunistic shots, “freebies”, those not in stable living arrangements or in groups where there were not enough clean fits for use.

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HEPATITISWA Newsletter // Sept 2012

The group did acknowledge that there was an element that still roll the dice and take the risk of sharing equipment. This was particularly evident when using or injecting with “friends” or “brothers” or” lovers”.

The group said that it was very difficult when you first started using because you really didn’t know much and you relied on mates/ lovers to show you what to do. They were seen as the experienced users and were considered as “those who know what to do”. It was also difficult to speak up against a peer group and risk being considered “uncool”. When the group was asked about what they had known about sterile injecting techniques when they commenced injecting, most of the group acknowledged that they knew “nothing” or “very little”.

They acknowledged that they usually relied on their “peers” or those who were already injecting to show them what to do.

The subject about the importance of having sterile ancillary (other equipment such as spoons, water, filters, tourniquets) to accompany the clean needle and syringe was also canvassed. This area seemed less important, especially when younger people are using in groups.

Although, it seemed that those who were steadfast in using their own clean needle, and who insisted on knowing that all needles were unused and fresh out of its wrapper, that it was this group who also insisted on using other sterile equipment.

When asked about cleaning and re-using equipment, it appeared that those that used barrels would often clean them out and re-use them. It was disturbing to note that it was still common to assume that warm or hot water was necessary and was more effective than the use of cold water. Did you know that cold water is more effective in flushing out blood from syringes? It was also disturbing to note that the group knew of mates who also commonly flushed out butterfly apparatus (butterflies) and re-used this equipment. This was highly dangerous behaviour as the incidence of infections, septicaemia and dirty hits would be extremely high.

When asked about disposal of used equipment; those who were more rigid in their ideas around safe using also carried this through to safe disposal, primarily taking advantage of the needle and syringe program where they could also safely discard their equipment. However, twenty percent stated that they still disposed of fits unsafely and had not adapted any

Needle & syringe

orientation &

Training package

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HEPATITISWA Newsletter // Sept 2012

NSP Online Orientation and Training Package for NSP Staff and Pharmacy Workers The Sexual Health and Blood-borne Virus Program, in collaboration with the Workforce Development Branch of the Drug and Alcohol Office (DAO), have developed two Online NSP Orientation and Training Packages for NSP staff and for pharmacy workers.

Online training for NSP staff This training aims to enhance the knowledge, confidence and skills of health workers who deliver NSP services and is available via the following link: http://www.dao.health.wa.gov.au/nsp The training can be undertaken for people new to working in the area of NSP, as a refresher for those who already work in NSP and/or have attended the NSP Coordinator training in the past, or for anyone who is interested in learning about NSP. The entire program takes approximately 3 hours to complete and consists of ten stand-alone modules which can be done at your own pace, with the ability to stop and start at any time. There are a series of questions at the end of each module with a final assessment on completion of the program.

For registered nurses involved in providing NSP services, this online learning program has been endorsed by Royal College of Nursing, Australia. Completion attracts 3 RCNA Continuing Nurse Education (CNE) points.

Online NSP training for pharmacies This training aims to enhance the capacity of pharmacy staff to assist customers purchasing injecting equipment and is available via the following link: http://www.dao.health.wa.gov.au/nsppharmacy The program is shorter than the training package for NSP staff and contains eight stand-alone modules with learning objectives, activities, questions and a reference list. The duration of each module varies; however the total program duration is approximately one and a half hours (participants do not have to complete this at once and can return to the course as and when they are able to).

The activity has been accredited by the Australian Pharmacy Council for 1.5 hours and 3.0 Group 2 PCD upon successful completion of the assessment. These credits are suitable for inclusion in an individual pharmacist’s CPD plan.

Assessment Following completion of all of the modules there is a final assessment for each of the training packages, which includes 20 questions, with a pass mark of 75%. A certificate of completion will be provided once the assessment has been passed.

CD-ROM A copy of the online programs are available on CD-ROM for anybody who has difficulty accessing the internet. To obtain a copy of the CD-ROM, please see our contact details below.

If you would like more information regarding the online program, please contact the BBV Team on 08 9388 4841 / NSP@health.wa.gov.au

HEPATITISWA Newsletter // Sept 2012

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Hurricane

Y

ou’re out with your mates, and

you’re sick of

ordering boring soda water, orange juice, or lemon, lime and bitters... next time you’re out and about with a friend, ask the bar tender to make you a kiddy-cocktail. Yes, it might sound a little juvenile,

but you should be kind to your liver, and these non-alcoholic cocktails can be just as tasty as an alcoholic one!

This

issue’s

Tell

the

drink bar

recipe

tender

is you

called

a

“Hurricane”.

want

orange

juice,

pineapple juice, cranberry juice, and some grenadine syrup, and you have your self a very tasty beverage.

Switch it up. Next time, instead of orange juice, try peach syrup or lime, and if you’re at home, add some crushed ice with a dollop of whipped cream, topped with some maraschino cherries. Be creative. You will not be bored with your drink again!

HEPATITISWA Newsletter // Sept 2012

Image used with permission. Photography by Saleem Bradley © 2012.

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