Eye infection afflicts thousands
PHOTO: FILE
The Punjab health authorities have advised the medical superintendents of all government teaching hospitals in the province to remain alert round the clock to provide treatment to patients of eye infection.
The instruction came as an infectious eye ailment spread across Punjab, with with as many as 20,000 patients reported within the past 24 hours.
The department also banned with immediate effect the use in hospitals of an injection blamed for an eye disease.
It also issued guidelines for the citizens to avoid eye infection.
The infection spread across the province at an alarming rate with sources in the health authorities estimating that around 20,000 patients of eye diseases had contacted government and private hospitals, including 500 in the Mayo Hospital, 481 in Lahore General Hospital, 390 in Services Hospital, 180 in Children's Hospital, 300 in Ganga Ram Hospital and 250 in Gulab Devi Hospital in Lahore. Around 6,000 patients of eye infection were brought to private hospitals in Lahore and thousands of more cases were confirmed across the districts of the province, said a senior health official.
According to officials of the department, the condition of patients given a specific injection of a company had deteriorated and it had been alleged that some of them had lost their eyesight. The department ordered the hospitals to stop using the injection.
"We immediately ordered that the use of the injection in hospitals be stopped. The drug inspectors and pharmacists were instructed to confiscate the injection from all hospitals," caretaker Punjab Minister for Primary and Secondary Healthcare stated.
He said a five-member inquiry committee had been formed to probe into the matter and submit a report.
The hospitals were also instructed to provide maximum facilities to the patients.
According to a notification of the department, the inquiry committee will work under the supervision of senior eye specialist Dr Asad Aslam and comprise of Drug Control Director General Muhammad Sohail and one doctor each from the Mayo, Lahore General and Services hospitals.
The committee has been asked to submit practical remedial steps along with measures for the prevention such incidents in future.
On the other hand, drug inspectors across Punjab also began checking the injections at medical stores and sealing the pharmacies four d selling the spurious product.
"The department has alerted all hospitals of the province to make maximum arrangements in their ophthalmology and outpatient departments," a spokesman, Syed Hamad Raza, told The Express Tribune.
He said there had been complaints of the use of expired injections having caused the problem, but the inquiry committee's findings would clarify the matter.
He said all patients of eye diseases should visit government hospitals where the eye specialists had been asked to remain on duty.
The health authorities advised that eye patients should remain at a distance from other people.
"The eye infection is spreading due to cough and physical interaction. The patients should use hand sanitiser and other people should also wash their hands several times daily," as per the guidelines.
The people were advised not to touch used clothes and other items of infected patients at home and to maintain distance from the patients.
Meanwhile, the primary and secondary healthcare department also lodged a first information report (FIR) against two employees of a private hospital in Lahore, Abdullah and Bilal Rasheed, with respect to the use of spurious injections.
According to sources, the injections had been produced at the pharmacy of the hospital in the Township area.
The men nominated in the case were responsible for supplying the injections to various hospitals in the province.
The department also sealed the pharmacy.
Published in The Express Tribune, September 25th, 2023.