Nationally, within Mongolia, Hepatitis B and C have become an epidemic. These diseases do not discriminate. Recently, the Prime Minister of Mongolia resigned his position due to complications from Hepatitis C. Anecdotal estimates are as high as sixty percent of all Mongolians have Hepatitis B, C or both.

Anecdotal evidence also suggests that medical institutions are one of the leading forms of transmission for Hepatitis B, commonly called the “injection disease”, in Mongolia. The Western Pacific Region of the World Health Organization (WHO) indicates that health care worker vaccination programs for Hepatitis B were of high priority in Asia, secondary only to infant vaccination programs.

Currently, there is no standardized Hepatitis B vaccination process established for health care workers, even though the Ministry of Health issued a mandate in 2001 declaring that all district Hospitals should pay to vaccinate all of their high-risk health care workers.  Upon investigation at several hospitals, verbal estimates by hospital administrators indicated that fifty percent of all health care workers are infected with Hepatitis B.

Mongolia also has an unusually high rate estimation of Hepatitis D for Asia. Studies also show an unusually high rate of death caused by Hepatitis B and C within Mongolia. This is in large part due to the co-infection of Hepatitis B and C and the prevalence of alcoholism and consequently, cirrhosis and liver cancer. 

Program Description

1. FIRE is developing a three phase project that will directly address the need for more education and healthcare worker vaccination in Mongolia in cooperation with the National Institute of Health (NIH), Mongolian Ministry of Health (MoH), and World Health Organization (WHO).

2. The first phase will involve the testing of 700 blood samples from Mongolian healthcare workers.

3. The results of these samples will be used for the second phase, which consists of creating comprehensive educational programs for both healthcare workers, as well as the general public.

4. The last phase of our hepatitis project is the implementation of a pilot vaccination program for healthcare workers at Khenti Aimag Hospital. We work with pharmaceutical companies to eventually vaccinate all health care workers in Mongolia.

Volunteer Opportunities
Training Material Development - We are currently creating our training materials. Please lets know if you would like to assist with this development.
Travel to Mongolia - You can assist with any phase of this program in Mongolia, the collection of blood samples, training and vaccination. Please contact us for more information.
Resource Development - We are actively looking for funding and possible vaccine suppliers for this program.

For More Information please visit the following links: Full HBV Program Description / Mongolian Medical System