23 August 2004	Monday	06 Rajab 1425

PESHAWAR, Aug 22: Over 7.5 per cent of blood donors are infected with hepatitis, a survey at the blood bank of one the city's hospitals revealed. "During the last seven months, out of the total 21,000 blood donors, 735 cases of Hepatitis B and 851 of Hepatitis C have been reported from January to July in 2004," said an official at one of the city's hospitals, citing the official record.

According to him, most of these people were healthy people, who had come to the hospitals to donate blood to their near and dear ones, and didn't realise that they had Hepatitis and only found out when informed by the blood bank staff.

More than 80 per cent of those detected positive for hepatitis B and C happened to be residents of remote areas of the province, a blood bank officer, said. According to him, most of the people in the rural areas were dependent on quacks for their treatment.

The quacks, he said administered injections to all the visiting patients at an affordable cost. Re-use of plastic syringes, he added was the main problem causing Hepatitis in the gullible people.

About 10 per cent of the Hepatitis positive patients, he said had been operated upon in the hospitals, where they might have got the infection from contaminated instruments in the operation theatres. About five per cent, he said had been to hospitals in the past.

"The remaining five per cent said that they had neither taken any injectable, nor donated blood," he said. Citing the survey reports of the World Health Organisation (WHO), he said that the main reason for spread of hepatitis was re-use of disposable syringes.

Some six months back, WHO-sponsored surveys conducted in Buner and Nowshera districts had revealed that the basic reason of hepatitis was re-use of syringes, he added.

Meanwhile, WHO's Peshawar-based Emergency Medical Officer, Dr Quaid Saeed, also confirmed that the excessive use of contaminated syringes in the rural areas have put the lives of the people at the razor's edge.