Body Shop's founder has hepatitis C

12 April 2012

Body Shop founder Anita Roddick has said she is suffering from the disease Hepatitis C.

The campaigner said she contracted the virus through a blood transfusion while giving birth to her youngest daughter, Sam, in 1971.

Dame Anita, 64, said she is also suffering cirrhosis of the liver, one of the long-term effects of the disease.

Dame Anita said: "I have Hepatitis C. It's a bit of a bummer but you groan and move on.

"I had no idea that I had this virus. I was having routine blood tests when it showed up."

She added: "What I can say is that having Hep C means that I live with a sharp sense of my own mortality, which in many ways makes life more vivid and immediate.

"It makes me even more determined to just get on with things."

Dame Anita called for more public money to be spent on raising awareness of the disease, which many people do not realise they are carrying.

She said: "Well, I've always been a bit of a 'whistleblower' and I'm not going to stop now.

"I want to blow the whistle on the fact that Hep C must be taken seriously as a public health challenge and must get the attention and resources that it needs."

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