Daily Times

SHIKARPUR: As per the chief minister’s initiative to make Sindh free of Hepatitis through the Hepatitis Prevention & Control Program (HPCP), as many as 551 patients of the Hepatitis C, 133 of Hepatitis B and 102 of Hepatitis D have been registered between January 2015 to November 2016, according to OPD’s record of the RBUT (Rai Bahadur Udhwadas Tarachand) Hospital.

At the moment, there were 291 patients of Hepatitis C and 287 of Hepatitis B being treated for this disease. In the year 2016, 135 patients of Hepatitis B completed their treatment, while 14 patients of Hepatitis C and 10 of Hepatitis B, under trial prisoners are also under treatment, HB Program in-charge Dr Shoukat Memon told Daily Times.

“We have organized five high risk group camps in remote areas of Shikarpur and vaccinated more than 55000 primary school children,” he said. He also said that the main reason of spreading the disease was lack of awareness amongst people, whereas the government should take steps to create awareness so that people could take preventive steps to save their lives from the fatal disease.

The disease has taken a rise in Sindh, which is according to experts, more dangerous than AIDS, he said. The reason behind spreading of the disease was use of poor and risky equipment during dental treatment, reusing of shaving blades and sharing of toothbrush, while blood transfusion was also a major factor, he added.

In addition, the screening test of Hepatitis B & C was available at Civil Hospital Shikarpur. However, some patients told this scribe that they were suffering as the hospital lacked facilities and HB Control Staff of the laboratory were no-cooperative. Several people died due to Hepatitis B & C in the district of Shikarpur.

It should be mentioned that 20 members of a family of Abdul Manan Brohi, resident of village, Toheed abad Brohi, Taluka Khanpur have died due to Hepatitis B & C. Talking to Daily Times, Abdul Manan Brohi, the head of the Brohis, said that all of the family members had died of Hepatitis B, C & D during 2008 to 2016, while those still alive were also suffering from the fatal disease.

Although, many of them are registered at HB Centre, but medicines are not being provided regularly, while the center has closed the treatment of Hepatitis D patients, Manan said. “Due to negligence of concerned management, we have been constrained to treatment at private clinics, which is quite expensive for us,” he alleged.

Dr Memon confirmed that the patients of Hepatitis D were being referred to Sukkur and then, after conducting some tests in Sukkur, they were being onward to Program Manager Hyderabad for treatment according to procedure, he said. Naveed Alam Abro, the social activist, Qaumi Awami Tehreek General Secretary Zahid Bhambhro, SAVE Shikarpur Chairman Ali Asghar Pahore and other social workers have expressed their deep concern over the rise of the disease particularly in the district of Shikarpur.

They said that the federal and the provincial governments had failed to provide health facilities to hepatitis patients. They demanded of the government to take steps to create awareness to prevent the disease before it spreads further.