KARACHI, Dec 26: Pakistan has approximately 10 million patients suffering from chronic Hepatitis B and C, out of more than 170 million people affected worldwide.

This was stated by health experts at a seminar arranged by the Ziauddin Medical University Hospital.

The speakers included leading gastroenterologists and hepatologists of the city including Dr Zaigham Abbas from SIUT, Dr Saeed Hamid from AKUH, and Dr Nasir Laique from ZMUH.

Dr Nasir Laique stressed the need for using combination therapy of PEG interferon and Ribavarin as standard treatment of hepatitis and pointed out that Hepatitis B/C/ HIV co-infection was difficult to treat.

Dr Saeed Hamid emphasized that the treatment of chronic Hepatitis B was much more complex than that of Hepatitis C and its success depended on proper patient selection. There are a number of treatment options available, with many new advances in the pipeline, he added.

ZMUH Vice-Chancellor Shahid Aziz strongly recommended the need of such awareness programmes to be conducted on a regular basis.—PPI