India's universal immunisation programme for infants currently does not include Hepatitis B vaccination. Experts are, however, pressing for its inclusion, pointing to the fact that HBV is 400 times more prevalent than AIDS.

There are over 45 million carriers of HBV in the country and 80 per cent of the cases progress towards liver cancer.

Chandra announced that by April next year, the Delhi Government would initiate the first steps towards making screening for Hepatitis C mandatory in all blood banks. India has around 15 million carriers of Hepatitis C.

Earlier, organisers of the conference declared that henceforth December 4 would be observed as `Hepatitis Awareness Day' and campaigns would be launched to spread the word on the silent killer disease.

Chandra welcomed two students from St Xavier's College (Mumbai), Sushmita and Monica, who came to attend the conference and launch a `Yellow Label' campaign to create awareness about Hepatitis.

The students pinned a yellow label on Chandra's coat and GB Pant Hospital Director Anindita Mandal pinned a label on Jethmalani.

S.P. Aggrawal, director general of health services; S.K. Sarin, head of Department of Gastroenterology at GB Pant Hospital; D.A. Gadkari, director of the National Institute of Virology in Pune and Raja Sambadhan, president of the Indian Association for Study of Liver which is organising the conference, were present on the occasion.

The conference is also being attended by a galaxy of leading international experts on liver diseases including Prof K. Okuda from Japan, Dr H. Blum from Germany and Dr Roger Williams from UK.