Sindh Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah on Thursday directed to ensure Hepatitis free province by 2018. "You are professionals and I hope that you will take necessary measures to make Hepatitis Free Sindh by end of my government's tenure," the Chief Minister directed the concerned officials while presiding over a meeting here.
The meeting was informed that there were over three million Hepatitis patients in Sindh when Sindh Chief Minister under special initiative launched Hepatitis Prevention and Control Program in 2009 at a cost of Rs 2.7 billion with the objective to take preventive and curative measures and to lunch public awareness campaign, said a statement.
The meeting was attended by Senior Minister for Finance and Energy Syed Murad Ali Shah, Health Minister Jam Mehtab Dahar, Advisor for Information Mola Bux Chandio, Additional Chief Secretary (Dev) Aijaz Ali Khan, Principal Secretary Alamuddin Bullo, Secretary Finance Sohail Rajput, Secretary Health Saeed Mangnijo and head of vertical programme going on under Health department.
It was disclosed in the meeting that a survey was conducted to ascertain the number of Hepatitis patients in Sindh which revealed that around three million Hepatitis patients were reported in the province, of them 2.5 percent were of Hepatitis B and 4.9 percent Hepatitis-C.
The programme was started in January 2009 and extended further for another three years, 2011-2014 at a cost of Rs 3.315 billion. Secretary Health Saeed Mangnejo said that around 8,608,400 people in the province have been given Hepatitis B vaccine so far which included 2.9 million general public,1.9 million high risk population, 170,001 newborn as first dose, 87538 jail inmates, 3,488,708 school going children, 194,000 in the flood hit areas, 6540 Hemophilic Academics Dialysis patients and 10,201 others.
Replying to a question, the Programme Manager Dr Khaliq Shaikh said that around 462,365 patients treatment have been completed, of them 154,405 were of Hepatitis- C patients, 14,636 of Hepatitis B and 3,638 of Hepatitis D. Apart from it 26418 patients are under treatment, including 17,890 of Hepatitis C, 88,347 of B and 181 of Hepatitis D.
He said that under the programme 300,000 school going children were vaccinated in September and October 2015 their third doze is due in February 2016. "We have also vaccinated 2165 jail inmates recently," he noted. Minister Health Jam Mehtab Dahar said that under the programme 20.7 million auto-destructible (ADs) have been provided to districts to promote use of AD syringes and discourage reuse. In order to create public awareness 154 awareness sessions have been conducted in jails and sub-jails.
He said that he has worked out a plan to establish Molecular Lab at Nawabshah, and new six centres at Taluka hospitals of different districts. The CM directed the Health department to increase screening provision and mobilise teams at grass root level for arranging hepatitis screening and vaccination camps, particularly in high risk areas.
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