Bollywood veteran Amitabh Bachchan revealed that he had lost 75% of his liver to the Hepatitis B virus, and was now surviving on the remaining 25%. Now a UNICEF ambassador for a Hepatitis B awareness programme, he said that he had lost his liver due to late diagnosis.
The actor revealed that he contracted the infection in 1982, when he was badly injured while shooting an action sequence for the film Coolie. During his treatment, Bachchan had received blood transfusions from around 200 donors
"Almost 60 collective bottles of blood was pumped into me during my accident in Coolie. One infusion was carrying the dreaded virus Australian antigen Hepatitis B. It remained in my body and silently ate up my liver, took away 75% of it until during a routine examination in the mid 2000′s, say around 2004 or 5, it was discovered," he wrote on his blog.
Bachchan also reassured his fans that thanks to timely detection, the disease was now in remission and monitored regularly.
T 2069 - My film for Hepatitis B .. for which I try to raise awareness as its Ambassador .. https://t.co/405iUGOj3w pic.twitter.com/CD1RyanXGW— Amitabh Bachchan (@SrBachchan) November 24, 2015
India has the second-highest number of Hepatitis B patients in the world, numbering around 40 million. Most people with chronic Hepatitis B and C are also not aware of their infection, which puts them at a risk of developing liver cancer and cirrhosis.