PESHAWAR, Jan 13: The growing militancy and law and order problems have badly affected the Prime Minister’s Hepatitis Control Programme in the NWFP, Fata and Balochistan, it is learnt.

The five-year programme costing Rs2.59 billion was launched in 2005. It is aimed at taking preventive measures against the disease along with vaccination and installation of incinerators and water purification plants in government hospitals across the country.

An official associated with the programme said that findings of the first-ever official study on the prevalence of hepatitis had been planned to be made public by the end of last year, but people tasked to conduct the study were reluctant to visit the NWFP, Fata and Balochistan because of security concerns.

“We have completed findings of the study in Sindh and Punjab and are waiting for findings from the Frontier province, Fata and Balochistan,” he added.

The countrywide study launched three months ago by the Pakistan Medical and Research Council would be used as baseline for future interventions regarding prevention of the disease, he said.

According to 250 studies conducted in country’s premier health institutions, the prevalence of hepatitis-B among people was 3.4 per cent and that of hepatitis-C was about six per cent.

“We have planned to collect 50,000 blood samples from people to be able to get a representative study. It will enable us to have a clear picture about the disease’s prevalence in the country,” the official said.

He said the programme’s focus was on strengthening investigation and creating awareness among the people about causative agents of the disease. Hospital waste management, installation of incinerators and infection control are main areas being given priority and 120 incinerators are to be provided to district headquarters in the country.

“So far we have installed only 11 incinerators in the NWFP against the total 24 planned for the province. Incinerators in seven hospitals in Fata could not be installed because of law and order problems,” the official added.

He said 22 sentinel centres for investigation and treatment of hepatitis had been established in the NWFP and Fata.

He said that contractors hired for the installation of incinerators were not ready to go to Fata and Dir, Swat, Swabi and even relatively calm districts of the NWFP owing to fear of militants. Activities of the hepatitis control programme have been halted in these areas.

“Punjab and Sindh are well ahead of the NWFP, Fata and Balochistan as far as the implementation of our activities is concerned, despite the fact that the programme had been launched simultaneously in all parts of the country,” the officials said.