HYDERABAD, Sept 26: The adviser to the Sindh chief minister on health, Malik Faisal Gabol, has said that a campaign against the spread of hepatitis will be launched from the province's Jacobabad district on Sept 29.

He was speaking as a chief guest at a seminar on "Menace of spurious drugs and quackery" organized by the local chapter of the Pakistan Medical Association here on Saturday.

He said the Sindh Assembly would enact strict laws against the manufacturers of spurious and substandard drugs as well as the quacks who were playing with the lives of people.

He said unfortunately, the MBBS doctors were not prepared to serve in rural areas as a result poor villagers were forced to go to quacks. The adviser said the doctors should peep into their conscience and think twice whether they had done anything for the poor people.

He said it was easier to organize seminars and workshops but nobody ever went to a heroin addict sitting on the garbage heap as to why he had left his home. He asked who would work for the rehabilitation of heroin addicts.

EDO health Dr Nazar Mohammad Junejo said the government had done everything possible to arrest the sale of spurious drugs. He said there were some complications in the law as allopathic medicines were being sold as herbal drugs.

He said when drugs were sent for laboratory tests, the reports were delayed by two to six months. He said the reuse of disposable syringes was like a bomb for human health and added that the practice had been adopted by the quacks in the rural areas.

PMA Hyderabad president Prof Hussain Leghari said in the rural areas, patients invariably sought help from quacks who dispensed antibiotics and cortisone which provide immediate relief.

The vice-chancellor of the Liaquat University of Medical and Health Sciences, Prof Jan Mohammad Memon, said spurious drugs and quackery had spread like cancer throughout the country. He said no qualified doctor was prepared to serve in rural areas, therefore, the poor people had no choice but to go to quacks.