KARACHI, Jan 13: Almost eighty per cent of the 50,000 thalassaemic patients in the country are infected with hepatitis due to unscreened blood transfusion. A strategy exists to prevent thalassaemia at the community level, but this is possible only if non-government organisations working at the grassroots level utilise some of their funds for prevention besides treatment of the disease.

This was stated by Brigadier Suhaib Ahmed, of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, Rawalpindi, in a seminar on thalassaemia, which was organised as part of the third annual symposium, Neonatal and Child Health: World Scenario, of the National Institute of Child Health.

Addressing participants, Dr Ahmed said almost eighty per cent of the 50,000 thalassaemic patients in the country had been infected with hepatitis due to unscreened blood transfusion. Fifteen to twenty thousand patients were registered with different NGOs.

Prevention, he said, was the only solution in limited resources and the NGOs could play a significant role in it.

The extended family members of thalassaemic children should be screened and be made aware of the disease.

“Families with a thalassaemic child need to understand the nature of the disease and its long term effects.

To say don’t go for cousin marriages, is not the way to tackle the issue. Screening families for thalassaemia should be mandatory and if there is a carrier among couples, present them with options regarding the marriage,’’ he said.

About the cost of screening tests which runs into thousands, he said a test, Osmotic Fragility, is available that would cost only one rupee.

This test, he said, helps identify non-carrier persons, but further testing was needed for confirmation of positive cases. Since screening of mass population is not a practical option, this method can help reduce the cost on testing.

Dr S. Sarfarz H. Jafry speaking about the prevalence of thalassaemia in Pakistan, said out of a population of 160 million, 8.5 to 9.5 million were estimated to be carriers.

Every year 5,000 thalassaemic children are born. The Baloch people have the highest prevalence, eight per cent.

He also said that a history of high incidences of deaths of children under 5 years had been reported at Shah Bandar and various sites along the coast. Many pockets had been identified in Malir, Badin, Dadu, Nawabshah and Larkana districts.