A large number of people were found suffering from hepatitis in one of the villages on the outskirts of Malir, Karachi, after some NGOs conducted a medical camp in the area. The alarming statistics that came to front shed light on the poor state of health affairs in the province. If Dost Muhammad Khaskheli village, an outlying area of Sindh’s largest city, which has relatively easy access to medical facilities can face such a poor health situation, then surely there is little hope for the far-flung villages in rural Sindh.
The health practitioners who participated in the medical camp said that the cases of hepatitis were high due to the reuse of syringes in the local dispensaries. Most of the people in the area believe that injections are the only cure to whatever health problems they face so they ask their local doctors to administer injections for even minor ailments. In an area where the same syringes are used from one patient to another, it is no surprise that of the 300 people tested at the camp, 52 of them were found to be suffering from hepatitis B and C.
Alarming as the situation is, it cannot be ignored that the remaining 700 people in Dost Muhammad Khaskheli village have yet to be tested. The health department needs to spring into action and make sure each and every person living in this area and around it is tested for hepatitis. Once this is done, the health department must also provide vaccinations to the residents and offer treatment to the ones found suffering. Once these urgent steps are taken, the health department must join hands with the district municipal corporation and address the basic issues of sanitation, lack of awareness and lack of good doctors in the area. It was also revealed in the camp that more females are suffering from hepatitis as compared to males. The authorities must observe their standard of living and find out how and where these women are contracting the disease from. The problem needs to be cured at source before it goes out of hand.
Published in The Express Tribune, July 18th, 2014.
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So why not educate the people? Turn down their request and explain why. And if your still short on syringes build one less cruise missile and buy/build fifty million syringes.