Week-long awareness campaign for XDR Typhoid begins

Sindh Health Care Commission has registered around 8,000 cases since Nov 2016

HYDERABAD: Sindh Health Care Commission (SHCC) has registered around 8,000 cases of multi-drug resistant typhoid in the province since the first case was reported in November 2016 in Hyderabad. SHCC Hyderabad division head Dr Abdul Sattar Memon told a press conference that so far, the water-borne virus has claimed five lives in Sindh including two each in Hyderabad and Karachi and one in Badin district.

"The sewage-contaminated drinking water has emerged as the cause of this super bug typhoid," said Dr Memon, adding that the virus has now spread to some other countries. He informed that people can suffer from this strain of typhoid during any of the four seasons in the year.



According to him, the blood culture test which is required to diagnose the typhoid is available at only a few labs in Karachi and Hyderabad, which take up to a week for the results. "No district headquarter hospital offers this test," he told.

He apprised that recently, 32 drinking water samples were collected from different areas of Hyderabad for lab testing and the virus was found in 21 of them. "This manifests that wide-ranging preventive measures are required so that people don't fall ill with this health condition."

The health official urged citizens to immunise their newborns and young children against XDR typhoid. He said the commission will discourage doctors from unnecessarily prescribing antibiotic medicines as their frequent consumption develops antibiotic resistance in the human body.

Memon informed that a week-long awareness campaign in Hyderabad will start from March 4 (today).