Repercussions: Medicines for hepatitis destroyed in airport carnage

The medicines are a necessity for the 20,000 registered patients of Hepatitis C in Sindh.

KARACHI: Karachi still seems to be reeling from the attack at the airport on Sunday night as each new day brings more bad news for the city. It has recently come to light that a whole batch of vaccines and medication for the treatment of hepatitis perished in the fire that destroyed the cold storage facility at the office of Gerry’s D’nata.

Officials of the provincial Hepatitis Prevention and Control Programme (HPCP) had placed an order for the medicines on May 28. The order was to be delivered within a week’s time but it has not been received by the provincial authority yet.

There are over 20,000 registered patients suffering from Hepatitis C across the province. The patients need regular doses of interferon to cope with the disease. It is feared that the hospitals would face a severe shortage of the medicine in the coming days if it is not provided to them soon.

“We were supposed to receive the batch within a week but the supply has been delayed,” confirmed the provincial HPCP programme manager, Dr Zahoor Ahmed Baloch. He clarified, however, that there was no shortage of vaccines at the hospitals.

Vaccination is a preventative measure while the more important medication is the interferon which is used to treat the disease. The head office of the provincial HPCP in Hyderabad distributes the medicines to health units set up in different cities of the province. They have, however, yet to receive the latest batch.

“It is the supplier’s responsibility to provide the medicines on time and we are pushing him to deliver as soon as possible,” Baloch told The Express Tribune.

Dr Baloch added that his programme was not currently affected by the mishap that occurred at the airport. “We are not short of the injection now,” he claimed. “I don’t know what the cause of delay is. Maybe it was damaged [in the fire] but we haven’t been informed about it yet.”

There are 450 patients registered at Civil Hospital, Karachi. According to the programme’s focal person at the hospital, Dr Ghulam Mujtaba Memon, the stock is sufficient for now.

Sources claimed, however, that the programme will be in trouble if the health units are not supplied interferon within a week.­­

Published in The Express Tribune, June 13^th, 2014.