DADU: Weeklong hepatitis awareness, screening and treatment camp has been set up by Bilqees Razai Laghari Welfare Trust on Sita Road at a health centre of Qasbo in Dadu district.
Specialist doctors and lady doctors checked patients and provided free medicines and treatment.
Talking to Daily Times, Dr Younis Jamali said that on the first day of the camp, more than 3,000 patients were checked, of which 40 percent tested positive for hepatitis B and C. He said that other common diseases were also found among patients. Dr Younis said that they had also tested HIV patients, of which 100 patients were found infected with hepatitis B and C. He said that in Qasbo area, the situation was alarming and the residents needed immediate medicines and better treatment.
Dr Younis said that food shortage and acute shortage of clean drinking water were the main causes of the spread hepatitis among women, children and elderly men in the area. He said that Bilqees Razai Laghari Trust had provided free medicines and treatment to patients in different villages and UCs of Dadu district.
Neelam Solangi, who had been diagnosed with hepatitis B, told this scribe that she was poor and had never visited the Civil Hospital, or any private hospital, of Dadu. She said that free-of-cost diagnosis, treatment and medicine facilities were the only thing that pushed her to visit the camp set up for the poor. “I have been diagnosed. At least now I know that I am a patient of hepatitis B.”
She said that doctors ran her blood tests and provided free medicines.
Another patient of hepatitis C, 50-year-old Khalid Khoso, said he was thankful of the organisers of this free camp for poor people like him. He said his wife Noreen also tested positive for the disease and received free medicines. He said that doctors at the camp were also making people aware about HIV.
Talking to the scribe, camp organiser Sultan Ahmed Laghari said that his aim was to help the poor who could not afford better treatment for themselves and their children at private hospitals.
Pakistan People’s Party MNA Imran Zafar Laghari, MPA Sajeela Laghari and UC Chairman Jabbar Khan Shahani also visited the camp.