KARACHI, May 19: Health experts at a seminar on Monday stressed the need for raising awareness about hepatitis and extending preventive and precautionary measures both in rural and urban areas.

Expressing their views on the rising incidence of hepatitis in the country, they said that it was mainly because of public ignorance about preventive measures in addition to the government’s failure to extend remedies to all the affected people under a well-coordinated system of diagnosis and treatment.

The seminar, held at the Dow Medical College auditorium, was organised by the National Institute of Liver and GI Diseases (NILGID) of the Dow University of Health Sciences in collaboration with the Pakistan Society for Study of Liver Diseases to mark the World Hepatitis Day, observed on May 19.

According to the World Health Organisation statistics, about 400 million people in the world are suffering from Hepatitis B with one third of them living in Asia. While another report shows that about 20 million people in Pakistan are suffering from different types of hepatitis. The treatment of disease, classified as acute and chronic depending on the duration of infection, is absolutely unaffordable for the downtrodden sections of society.

Talking about the causes of hepatitis conditions, the speakers suggested solutions with simple precautions, including effective blood screening, vaccination, proper sanitation facilities, and underlined the need for conducting more community education programmes. Hepatitis B is the deadliest disease that can be prevented through infant vaccination. Each year hundreds of babies are born to women with Hepatitis B and a good number of newborns are chronically infected, the speakers added.

DUHS pro-vice chancellor Prof Salahuddin Afsar said lack of awareness and basic education, use of unhygienic food and contaminated water, reuse of syringes, and unsafe blood donation and transfusion were the major factors behind the spread of hepatitis. To contain the disease, people need to take upon themselves the task for getting their newborns vaccinated at the earliest, he added.

NILGID Director Dr Rana Qamar Masood informed the audience about the objectives and achievements of her centre. She underlined the need for making coordinated efforts enabling hepatitis patients to have medical check-ups and treatment without much hassle at certain specified places. The NILGID had, she said, planned to increase the number of its lab collection points in the city to provide affordable means of screening and relevant diagnosis.

General Secretary of the Pakistan Society for Study of Lever Diseases Prof Saeed Hamid said four to six per cent of the country’s population were suffering from hepatitis B and C. There were seven million people living with Hepatitis C and 10 million with Hepatitis B in the country. Due to late diagnosis and treatment, a number of patients developed complexities and ended up with liver cancer, he added.

Dr Masroor, a professor of medicine at the Dow varsity, said that Hepatitis C damaged not only the liver but also affected the functioning of other body parts which might cause diabetes, weakness of mind, blood cancers, and joint diseases. However, according to him, hepatitis B and C like other types were also curable.

Dr Rafique Khanani claimed that hepatitis diseases could not be timely diagnosed often due to substandard laboratory tests being carried out in the metropolis.

Dr Mohammad Saleh of the DUHS and Dr Rustam Khan of the Aga Khan University also spoke at the seminar.