This story was produced in partnership with the Hepatitis B Foundation. They previously shared Sonia’s story in the video embedded further down in the article. They’re a great resource for info on hepatitis B and advocates for people affected by it.
by Sonia
People living with hepatitis B often suffer in silence. I know, because for years I was one of them, before I understood what I was carrying, or that I wasn’t alone.
The Day Everything Changed
I vividly remember 2020, the year the coronavirus pandemic broke out worldwide. My mother decided our family should go to the health center to test for hepatitis B and get vaccinated if we could. So we went: my mother, my siblings, and me.
Minutes later, the results came back. Everyone else tested negative.
I was the only one who tested positive. Because of that, I couldn’t be vaccinated.
I was devastated. My siblings stood beside me as I cried, telling me everything would be alright. I held onto their words. My mother tried to explain the virus to me. But in the days and weeks that followed, I couldn’t stop asking myself: what had caused this? Who had I contracted it from? How was I going to get rid of this HBV inside me? I became so traumatized that I isolated myself, even from my own family, convinced I would infect the people I loved.
No one referred me for further treatment after that test. I was left to figure it out on my own.
A Body Sending Signals
I returned to university and began noticing symptoms: fatigue, fever, weight loss, a body that always felt too warm. More than once, I went to the hospital convinced it was malaria. Then one day, my mother came to visit. When I hugged her, she pulled back.
“Why is your body so hot?”
I told her I didn’t know.
My studies suffered. I couldn’t concentrate in the lecture hall. Stress alone was enough to make me sick. My performance dropped and my body got weaker. Eventually I opened up to my best friend, who told her mother immediately. Together, they insisted I get proper treatment. Her mother took me to the hospital, where a nurse ran a combo test, a viral load test, and other necessary screenings.
The results confirmed what I’d feared: hepatitis B. And it had become chronic enough to cause liver damage.
I was stunned. I told my mother about the tests I’d taken with my friends’ help. She had to find funds to help me complete testing before I could even be placed on medication.
The Weight of Stigma
Getting a diagnosis was only part of the battle. I carried the stigma with me: the belief that HBV was incurable; that I would live with it until I died. I was put on strict diets. Some family members and friends treated me as though I carried something deadly and highly contagious. I started keeping my things separate: my own spoon, my own plate, my own cup, fearing that hepatitis B could spread through saliva or sweat.
People living with HBV often suffer in silence, because the fear surrounding how it spreads only pushes us deeper into isolation.
Finding My Voice
In 2025, I moved to Adamawa. Eventually, I confided my health journey to a colleague. He connected me with the Jeneso Development Initiative, under the Africa Hepatitis B Advocacy Coalition project. Through that work, I learned what I wished I had known years earlier: how hepatitis B is actually transmitted, how it is managed and treated, and how a safe, effective vaccine can prevent it entirely—in people who don’t yet carry the virus.
I also received support to continue the medication I couldn’t previously afford.
Now I advocate for others still carrying the weight of stigma, still believing an HBV diagnosis is a death sentence. I can tell you from experience: it is not. Hepatitis B is a virus, not a character flaw. It cannot be spread through hugging, shaking hands, or sharing a meal. Many people living with hepatitis B live long, healthy, productive lives. It can be managed. It can be treated. And in people who haven’t yet been infected, it can be prevented with a vaccine.
Having hepatitis B does not make you unworthy, unclean, or alone.
Get tested. Get vaccinated if you can. Get informed. And if you have Hepatitis B, know that you are not your diagnosis. There are people standing with you, people like me, who have lived this, and who believe that you deserve love, respect, work, family, and hope.
Sonia lives in Adamawa State, Nigeria, where she advocates for people living with hepatitis B. Her story, like all others on this blog, was a voluntary submission. If you want to help make a difference, submit your own post by emailing us through our contact form. We depend on real people like you sharing experience to protect others from misinformation.
