World Hepatitis Day: Doctors and paramedics walk to talk hepatitis

Participants carried banners inscribed with awareness messages such as ‘Prevention is better than cure’.

KARACHI:

Sindh Hepatitis Prevention and Control Programme (HPCP) has organised an awareness walk to mark World Hepatitis Day on Saturday in Karachi.

The walk began from Civil Hospital, Karachi, and passed through Jamia Cloth, Dow Medical University of Sciences and culminated at the administration block back at the hospital. A large number of doctors, nurses, paramedical staff and civil society memebers participated in the awareness walk. The participants carried banners and placards inscribed with different awareness messages such as ‘Prevention is better than cure’ and ‘Hepatitis affects everyone, everywhere’.

HPCP provincial manager Dr Zahoor Baloch, while addressing the participants of the walk, said that the aim of the walk was to create awareness about prevention from hepatitis. He said that 150,000 hepatitis C cases have been registered by the programme since 2009, while 18,000 hepatitis B and 3,800 patients with hepatitis D have also been registered so far. He further added that around 1,000 to 1,200 new patients with hepatitis are being reported annually in Sindh.

Barbershops and beauty salons are likely places where people can catch hepatitis, he said, adding that people should also watch out for used syringes.

Sindh Paramedical Staff Welfare Association patron-in-chief Akhlaq Ahmed Khan and Sindh Doctors Welfare Association general secretary Dr Nawaz Ali Mallah also attended the awareness walk.

Sources said that due to Eidul Fitr, health authorities and HPCP management decided to celebrate the World Hepatitis Day two days earlier. 

Published in The Express Tribune, July 27^th, 2014.