World Hepatitis Alliance

World Hepatitis Alliance (WHA)

The World Hepatitis Alliance is a Swiss registered Non-Governmental Organisation set up for the purpose of organising World Hepatitis Day (WHD) on the 19th May. Its board consists of 6 patient groups (each representing a region of the world) and a president representing the whole. The 6 regions are:

> North America
> Latin America
> Europe
> Africa/Eastern Mediterranean
> Western Pacific
> Australasia

Membership

The WHA is exclusively an umbrella patient group organisation. It has a governing board of patient representatives as described above and a president representing the whole. The structure of the WHA is currently being finalised so it does not have members at the moment but from 2009 a membership structure will be in place. Representatives will then be elected from members in their respective regions and the president elected by the membership as a whole.  The current president is Charles Gore, CEO, Hepatitis C Trust.

Public Health Panel

The WHD has an advisory Public Health Panel of nine eminent physicians:

> Prof Baruch Blumberg, Nobel Laureate discoverer of HBV, USA
> Prof Greg Dore, The University of New South Wales, Australia
> Dr Leonardo Pinchuk, Former President of ALEH, Argentina
> Dr Miguel Garassini, President of ALEH, Venzuela
> Dr João Mendonça, President of the Brazilian Society of Infectology, Brazil
> Prof Stefan Zeuzem, Prof of Medicine J.W. Goethe University Hospital, Germany
> Prof S P Singh, SCB Medical College, India
> Prof Dong Jin Suh, Asan Medical Centre, Korea
> Prof Hui Zhuang, Peking University, China