A proclamation recognizing May 19th as “Hepatitis Testing Day” and July 28th as “World Hepatitis Day”.
And it is the leading cause of cirrhosis, liver cancer and liver transplants in the United States. And. Whereas, as many as 1700 hepatitis C related deaths occur annually in the United States, these rates are expected to peak between the years 2030 and 2035 at 36,000 deaths per year, making hepatitis C one of the top preventable causes of death. Whereas people born between 1945 and 1965 are five times more likely to be infected than any other adults. More than 75% of all people with hep C in the United States are people in this age range and are largely unaware of the condition due to lack of any signs, symptoms and testing, leading hepatitis C to be labeled as, quote unquote, silent epidemic. And. Whereas, Hepatitis C disproportionately affects people of color and the majority of individuals living with the infection can be cured of the virus through the advent of effective treatment options currently available on the market. And those cured through treatment are able to stop and even reverse damage to the liver caused by the virus. And. Whereas, hepatitis C can be prevented, testing can identify existing infections and early diagnosis and treatment can save lives, money and resources. And. Whereas. Liver Health Connection is available as a statewide resource for education testing, linkage to care and other support services. Now, therefore, be it proclaimed by the Council of the City and County of Denver, Section one, that the Denver City Council agrees that preventing and treating Hep C as an important public health initiative that will improve the quality of life for Denver residents affected by the virus. Section two at the Denver City Council proclaims May 19th as hepatitis testing day and recognizes July 28th as World Hepatitis Day. Section three that the clerk of the city and county of Denver shall test and affix a seal of the city and county of Denver to this proclamation and that a copy be transmitted to Nancy Steinfurth, executive director of the Liver Health Connection. Thank you. Councilman Lopez, your motion to adopt. Thank you, Mr. President. I move that council proclamation 381 series of 2016 be adopted. Moved and seconded. Comments. Councilman Lopez. Thank you, Mr. President. I have had the honor to read this proclamation for the last eight years, every single year, and I do so. It originally was going to be read by by then Councilman Garcia, who was absent, and I need you to read it in its place. And as fate would have it, this is something really close to me. Something very close to my heart. I read it with pride, but also a little bit of sadness because this was the very same. Condition and virus that took my grandfather. Who died of cirrhosis of the liver caused by a hep C infection. And he had been a very healthy man his whole life. You know, worked very hard, proud guy. He had served our country in World War Two. And he was injured. And he received a blood transfusion and they didn't test for that then. And so he had became infected with the Hep C virus. During his transfusion, he did not know about it until well, well, well into his life, until he realized he was going to he's going to pass away from it. So it's very meaningful for me to read this proclamation because I know there's a lot of people out there, especially especially folks that were in that age range and that were mostly baby boomers that are born between 1945 and 1965. And as I said in the proclamation, are five times more likely than any other age group to be at risk and to have it and not even know it. And that's why it's important, because this is, you know, a while back, not too long ago, actually, this was almost a death sentence. And because of the resources, because of the research, because of the the work that that we as a world have put into this, there is now treatment and there's now even a cure. And it's important that we get folks into the into the laboratory get tested. And that's not no, it's not just for those that age group, but everybody. It's important to know that. So we will be actually having a free hepatitis C testing day this Thursday from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. in the atrium of the Webb building. And so I highly encourage anybody to go out there and get tested for that. It's terrible. Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, Councilman Lopez. Any other comments? Proclamation 381. Seen none, Madam Secretary. Raquel Lopez. I knew Ortega. Hi. Sussman. Hi. Black. Hi. Brooks, I. Clark. All right. Espinosa. Hi, Flynn. Hi. Gilmore. Hi, Mr. President. Hi. Madam Secretary, please, for the very nice results. A Lebanese Lebanese 381 has been adopted. Councilman Lopez, there's someone you'd like to invite to the podium to receive the proclamation. Yes, I'm looking at it right now. I'd like to invite the executive director of the Liver Health Connection, which is formerly the Hep C connection. Ms.. Nancy Steinfort. Thank you very much. I'm so honored to be here once again. And also thank you to Councilman Lopez, who's been our champion for so many years. We really do appreciate it. We gave you lots of statistics in that proclamation. I understand that. So it's it's kind of daunting to remember everything. So I'll give you one more statistic to throw at you. The CDC has 60 reportable conditions that they get statistics about on an annual basis. Hepatitis C is one of those statistics, one of those reportable conditions, as well as HIV and many other things. In 2014, the number of deaths related to hepatitis C surpassed the number of deaths for all 60 conditions combined. This is this is a big deal. This is a serious illness. And because the prevalence is so great among baby boomers and so. Many are unaware that they have it, that it's really. Becoming critical that we identify more and more people and link them to then care. So we're really excited about testing at the Web building on Thursday. There are 11 other partner organizations around the state that are testing that same day. Not all. We're building in their. Own communities, but we're honored to be able to do this. It's free. We will test baby boomers mainly, but we're happy to test anyone with any risk factor. There's a lot of risk factors. If you were a veteran in and served in the Vietnam War, that's a possibility because of blood transfusions at that time as well. They didn't start accurately testing the blood supply until 1992, and that wasn't really that long ago. So we encourage everyone to either visit us at the Webb building on Thursday or please ask your primary care physician because the test is considered free for baby boomers, because that is a risk risk group. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you, Councilman Lopez, for bringing that forward annually. Those were our two proclamations. So we're on to the resolutions. Madam Secretary, please read the resolutions. From finance and Services to 89 resolution. Approve any post lease agreement between City and County of Denver. Mile High Montessori Early Learning Centers for a child care center located at 957 Ulster Way. Governance and Charter Review 939 Resolution approve any post agreement between City and County of Denver Kaiser Foundation Health Plan Colorado to provide medical insurance coverage