‘Pakistan may face travel restrictions if hepatitis B and C not eliminated’ – The News International

‘Pakistan may face travel restrictions if hepatitis B and C not eliminated’  The News InternationalRead More

Pakistan might face travel restrictions if it failed to eliminate hepatitis B and C by 2030, as most of the world would achieve the goal of viral hepatitis elimination within the next eight years, leading gastroenterologists warned on Wednesday.

They urged that the federal government as well as the provincial governments immediately start door-to-door screening to ascertain the actual number of people infected with viral hepatitis.

“The entire world is heading towards elimination of hepatitis B and C, but unfortunately, its prevalence is increasing in Pakistan, especially in Sindh. If Pakistan fails to eliminate viral hepatitis, it may face travel restrictions in the years to come,” warned Dr Lubna Kamani.

Dr Lubna, a consultant gastroenterologist and the president of the Pak GI and Liver Disease Society (PGLDS), was addressing a news briefing at the Karachi Press Club (KPC).

A screening camp was arranged by the PGLDS at the KPC for journalists and their family members in connection with World Hepatitis Day 2022. It was followed by an awareness session and a walk to highlight the severity of viral hepatitis in the country.

Dr Lubna, who is associated with the Aga Khan University Hospital as well as the Liaquat National Hospital, claimed that hepatitis B and C kill one person every 15 minutes in the country.

She said that around 35,000 people die every year in the country due to complications of both the viral infections, which are not only preventable but are also treatable.

She said Egypt, which had millions of hepatitis B and C patients until a few years ago, had managed to eliminate viral hepatitis by screening its entire population and providing them free medicines, adding that now very effective medicines were available for treating viral hepatitis.

She also said Pakistani physicians and students would be sent to Egyptian institutions for training, as the PGLDS was working hard to promote a culture of research and training in the field of gastroenterology.

Dr Nazish Butt, another senior gastroenterologist associated with the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre, said hepatitis is more lethal than Covid-19, as it kills more people a year than all the persons killed by the coronavirus in two and a half years.

She urged the authorities in the country to launch mass screening campaigns to find out the actual number of patients so that they could be treated.

Regarding hepatitis A and E, which are caused by contaminated food and water, she claimed that hundreds of cases of water-borne hepatitis are being reported across the country following the recent rains, warning that acute hepatitis E caused by contaminated food and water can become highly lethal for pregnant women.

Dr Shahid Ahmed, PGLDS patron and gastroenterology professor at the Darul Sehat Hospital, said the theme for World Hepatitis Day 2022 is ‘Bringing hepatitis care closer to you’, which is aimed at highlighting the need to bring hepatitis care closer to primary healthcare facilities and ensure better access to treatment and care.

He said prevention is better than cure in the case of hepatitis B and C, as in most of the cases, the infected person does not know about their disease, and when they learn about it, their liver is damaged to an extent where a liver transplant is the only treatment.

“Even after the liver transplant, people need to consume expensive medicines and take extra care, which compromises their quality of life.”

Prof Amanullah Abbasi, former registrar at the Dow University of Health Sciences, said transfusing unscreened blood, reusing syringes and using infected razors are among the main reasons for the spread of viral hepatitis in Pakistan.

He urged people to get blood only from known blood banks, and insisted on using disposable syringes, and their own razors and kits for haircuts and shaves.

Dr Sajjad Jamil, another senior gastroenterologist, said the incidence of hepatitis B and C is decreasing in Karachi but it is on the rise in the rural areas of Sindh, Punjab and Balochistan, adding that the prevalence is over 15 per cent in Sindh’s Nawabshah and Punjab’s Gujranwala.

“On the other hand, we’re seeing thousands of cases of viral hepatitis from the rural areas on the Sindh, Balochistan and Punjab border, where the literacy rate is very low and the people are poor, and due to unawareness, they’re being infected with hepatitis B and C.”