LAHORE: The use of unsterilised instruments at beauty parlours, barbershops and dental clinics – being run by quacks – are a major cause of hepatitis A, B and allergy problems. Patients Rights Forum Chairman and renowned pharmacist Dr Noor said this while talking to APP on Sunday. He said that more than 4,000 quacks were running dental clinics in Lahore alone, while over 600,000 quacks were playing with the lives of poor patients across the country. He said that despite passage of SOR 504 – a law passed by the federal government on March 9, 2015 to ensure that all instruments at dental clinics, beauty saloons, barbershops or any place where skin of a person is touched by instruments should be sterilised and metal used in devices, like razors, should be registered and approved by the health authority concerned – the situation was still grim. He said that around 20,000 beauty parlours and hundreds of dental clinics and barbershops were being run without any sterilisation process in the city, and no inspection process was available to check them. He urged the Health Department to take notice of the situation. He suggested that the department concerned should evolve a mechanism to regularly inspect the beauty saloons, barbershops and clinics, particularly dental clinics, to save the people from serious diseases.