Indian film actor Amitabh Bachchan has revealed that he has been living with only 25 percent of his liver.
Bachchan was speaking during a media awareness campaign on hepatitis B and said that he had been injured while shooting for his movie "Cooli." He needed blood and one of the donors had been a hepatitis B carrier, resulting in the Big B contracting the disease, reported The Times of India.
"Almost 60 collective bottles of blood was pumped into me during my accident in Coolie. One infusion was carrying the dreaded virus Australian antigen Hep 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-2000s, say around 2004 or 5, it was discovered. I am now surviving on a 25% liver, under constant medication and being labelled as a Chronic Cirrhosis of the Liver condition - a condition normally described for alcoholics. But as all know, I do not drink!!" said Bachchan, according to The American Bazaar.
"By the time it was diagnosed, only one fourth of my liver was left," Bachchan said in a video to create awareness of the disease, produced by the union health ministry and Unicef, reported The Hindustan Times.
"I went through a medical course and during all my ailments, I relied on medical experts and doctors in my country despite having the means to do go abroad but I had faith in the medical professionals and doctors of India. When we took a second opinion abroad, I found out that whatever diagnosis was commanded to me by Indian was no different from the foreign ones. But I live and work and play and act and conduct normal family activities .. awareness and timely detection has done it for me .. it could get worse, for it is in remission now, and monitored regularly. And that is but one of my many serious ailments that plague me" he said.
