Rawalpindi - In connection with World Hepatitis day, a seminar was held at District Health Authority office, here on Tuesday. Speaking on the occasion, health experts called for raising awareness of hepatitis and preventive measures among people to prevent it from spreading further.
Chief Executive Officer DHA Dr Khalid Mehmood while addressing on the occasion said that wide-ranging effort was urgently needed to prevent millions of new infections and increasing deaths because of it.
He said that Hepatitis remained a major cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide, adding there were about 15 million people suffering from Hepatitis B and C in Pakistan and the prevalence of hepatitis C in the country was around 5 per cent and that of hepatitis B was nearly 2.5 percent.
The CEO said that majority of people infected with hepatitis died because of unawareness and did not get treatment. He said hepatitis viruses A, B, C, D and E, could cause acute and chronic infection and inflammation of liver, leading to cirrhosis and liver cancer. So, he said there were no alternative to prevent viruses except taking collective efforts.
District Health Officer Dr Tahir Rizvi while speaking said that Hepatitis A and E are spread by oral facial route while B and C are spread by blood. The usual mode of transmission of hepatitis B and C in Pakistanis is high rate of getting treatment by injections and intravenous therapy procedures. The instruments are not properly sterilized and reuse of syringes by quacks is also a major issue. He called for institutional, regional, national and global collaborations to beat the evil of hepatitis. Later a walk was also held to mark the day.