The government is not spending much to eradicate hepatitis as the prevalence of disease is increasing rapidly with each passing day, sources told Business Recorder on Monday. "The shortage of funds is the biggest hurdle in putting breaks on hepatitis", said the sources.
Though the government is fully aware of the issue, yet it is not paying much attention to it, besides shortage of funds, another big problem, is the lack of participation and coordination between the provincial and district governments, reason being lack of awareness.
"It is impossible to control the ailment without full involvement of the provincial and district governments", the sources said. Hepatitis is one of the 10 highly reported diseases in Pakistan and is endemic area for viral hepatitis "B."
"The prevalence rate of hepatitis "B" virus is continuously increasing in Pakistan with each passing day and the reason is, no doubt, the lack of proper health facilities, poor economic status of masses and less public awareness about the transmission and treatment of major communicable diseases like hepatitis "B" and C'," said the sources.
The 'World Hepatitis Day', was observed on Monday (May 19) around the globe. However October 1, 2007 was also observed as World Hepatitis Day and this is the first time the World Hepatitis Day on May 19. "The difference between both the days is that October 1 covers all type of hepatitis whereas May 19 focused only on hepatitis B and C," sources explained.
This year, the theme of the campaign is mainly focused on the size of chronic viral hepatitis as a health challenge, using a simple message number "12" to highlight that approximately one in 12 of the world population has chronic hepatitis B Virus (HBV) or hepatitis C Virus (HCV) infection.
"Infection is often undiagnosed and that it could be any one of us", said the sources. In Pakistan, only one programme called 'National Hepatitis Control Programme' worth Rs 2.5 billion is running.
"The five-year programme started in 2005 with the goal to reduce viral hepatitis prevalence by 50 percent till 2010, 100 percent coverage and sustenance of various services like installation of equipment, reagents, kits and training of staff in screening activities, data entry; monthly and yearly data collection and report formulation; transmission to provincial and Federal levels; and feedback, by the year 2010", said the sources. "Almost half of the project time has passed, but half of the targets were not achieved" said the sources.
According to health indicators, there are no national or regionally representative population-based data on prevalence of viral hepatitis. According to National Hepatitis Control Programme, estimated prevalence of hepatitis B amongst high-risk population ranges between 6.02- 22.8 percent whereas prevalence of Hepatitis C in the high-risk group ranges between 5.4-30.6 percent.
In addition, prevalence of Hepatitis B and C in general population is estimated to be three percent and 5.3 percent respectively. The prevalence of hepatitis B among health workers is 6.02 percent, in injecting drug users is 22.8 percent, in thalassemic children is 6.25 percent, hemodialysis patients is 9.6 percent and in sex workers is 11.6 percent.
Whereas the prevalence of hepatitis C among health workers is 5.4 percent, in injecting drug users is 12.1 percent, in thalassemic children is 30.6 percent, in hemodialysis patients is 24.7 percent and in multiple transfused cases it is 15 percent.
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