Among diseases hepatitis is the most prevalent in Pakistan, especially Punjab. The Punjab Hepatitis Control Programme has sought the intervention of the World Health Organisation (WHO) to check the likely outbreak of deadly hepatitis C in Pakistan, particularly in Punjab, that accounts for 60-70 per cent of the country’s disease burden. The request comes on the heels of WHO’s successful work with the Egyptian government where the virus has been defeated. Under the plan, WHO provides technical assistance for micro-elimination of diseases. Pakistan notoriously stands the second highest after China. The letter to the WHO has shocking figures of hepatitis in Pakistan. “It is estimated that there are 8-11 million individuals with active HCV viremia and 240,000 new infections per year in Pakistan.” The government has taken several measures like establishing hepatitis management programmes in every province, with a chain of testing and treatment sites at teaching and district and tehsil headquarter hospitals. Other measures include the launch of a centralised viral load testing facility, transport network and a central hepatitis reporting dashboard to get authentic data on the progress across all sites. These efforts, however, have been frustrated by the chronic virus and the deadly disease is increasing. Data suggests that more than one million people were confirmed carriers of hepatitis B and C till December 2019, while 300,000 had been treated – all in Punjab. Hepatitis elimination is an international struggle as the world has set a deadline of 2030 to make it free of hepatitis. Given the massive prevalence of hepatitis in Pakistan and lack of facilities, it is unlikely that we will be a hepatitis free country by 2030. Punjab alone is burdened with more than 850,000 hepatitis carriers who are in need of treatment.
Pakistan needs to come up with huge allocations for substantial scale-up of the hepatitis response. The letter to WHO points out certain steps such as screening, testing, treatment and preventative interventions for the general population based on the successful Egyptian micro-elimination model. Hopefully, with WHO’s technical assistance and by using indigenous resources, Pakistan will be able to fight off this disease. Most hepatitis cases are the outcome of waterborne diseases and the careless use of syringes and shaving and dental implants and tools. The real way to defeat hepatitis lies in clean water supplies and awareness. *