Hyderabad: A Symposium was held to mark World Hepatitis Day at a local hotel the other day.
Eminent Dr. Sadiq Memon of the Asian Institute of Medical Sciences (AIMS) said that every year World Hepatitis Day is observed, however, Pakistan is top in the world regarding Hepatitis and Hepatitis A, B, C, D and E are found in Pakistan and the main cause of its growth is lack of policy’s implementation.
He said that experts on liver diseases in Pakistan devised an anti-Hepatitis national Policy but it had not yet been implemented many countries including Egypt have eliminated Hepatitis after including the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Hepatitis free programme but the country has not had any major success.
He said that according to the report of the WHO, the of Hepatitis C patients in Pakistan is 8.8 million and the number of Hepatitis C patients in the world is 70 million while around 400000 patients die annually in the world means one patient dies after 80 seconds while 65 to 93 thousand patients die in Pa
kistan due to Hepatitis ailment.
Sadiq Memon said that only 20% of people suffering from the disease in Pakistan and the world know about their disease while 80% of people are unfamiliar with their disease. He appealed to people to visit medical camps and hospitals for the tests of Hepatitis B and C because when the disease is detected, treatment becomes easier.
On the occasion, eminent doctors, physicians and liver disease experts also spoke and shed light on the significance of fatal disease.