Love Your Liver With A&PI Wellness Center

Asian & Pacific Islander Wellness Center and the University of California, San Francisco, will be providing free hepatitis B screenings and vaccinations to the public at their second annual Love Your Liver Health Fair on Saturday, April 26.

The event will take place from 11:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. at the A&PI Wellness Center’s office located at 730 Polk Street, fourth floor.

A&PI Wellness Center has screened approximately 100 people in the last year and has discovered a 13 percent positive rate for chronic hepatitis B at their three previous events, which included the first Love Your Liver Day in April 2007, the New Immigrant Resource Fair in Chinatown in May 2007 and the Sunset Community Health Festival in September 2007. Jason Kwong, the center’s testing clinic specialist, said those who tested positive have been successfully linked to medical services, and many of these in need of hepatitis B vaccinations have also been treated.

Though A&PI Wellness Center is the oldest and largest nonprofit in North America focusing on sexual health and HIV/AIDS in A&PI communities, they have decided to include hepatitis B outreach and education as one of their priorities because of its high rate in Asians.

“Educating people about hepatitis B matches our agency’s goals — to educate, advocate and promote awareness of diseases that affect the A&PI community,” Kwong said. “Transmission of hepatitis B is also very similar to HIV, and it is important that we also educate the community about this.”

Hepatitis B is transmitted through unprotected sex; open-wound contact; shared razors or toothbrushes; shared or reused needles for tattoos, piercings or injections; and childbirth from mother to child.

“Hepatitis B affects about one in 10 of our A&PI brothers and sisters,” A&PI Wellness Center’s executive director Lance Toma said. “[We are] committed to do more to educate, prevent, screen, and provide early diagnosis to curb the epidemic of hepatitis B in our A&PI communities.”