PESHAWAR: Thalassaemia patients vulnerable to hepatitis, say doctors
By Ashfaq Yusufzai
PESHAWAR, Aug 16: Paediatricians have called for taking great care during blood transfusion in youngsters afflicted with thalassaemia, saying they are highly vulnerable to infectious diseases like hepatitis.
“Thalassaemic children need regular blood transfusion, making them more vulnerable to hepatitis,” said a paediatrician.
“About 10 to 15 per cent such children acquired hepatitis B or C in 2006. A majority of them had received more than 10 pints of blood at private blood transfusion centres,” said the paediatrician who carried out a study involving 75 thalassaemia patients in the city.
According to him, hepatitis robbed these children of whatever chances of survival they had.
There are about 50,000 thalassaemia patients in the NWFP but the province’s public sector hospitals are without blood transfusion facilities and these children are entirely at the mercy of private blood banks.
Paediatricians say most of the children belong to poor families, who are unable to bear the cost of hepatitis treatment. Private blood banks, which offer free transfusion services, often do not screen blood. This results in the fast spread of hepatitis among the already sick children.
Last year, a campaign run by the NWFP Safe Blood Transfusion Authority, had revealed that 90 per cent of the blood transfusion centres had no clinical testing facility or adequately trained staff. Some of these outlets had been closed down but they began doing ‘business’ under new names.
“Amendment in relevant laws has enabled us to register a case against owners of ill-equipped blood transfusion centres,” said an official of the authority. Underlining the need for further amendments, he said there was a need to empower the body to at least file criminal cases against people involved in running ill-equipped blood transfusion centres.
Child health experts said the children using a single blood transfusion centre remained relatively safe from contracting other diseases but those who visited different blood transfusion centres were more vulnerable.
“During initial stages of thalassaemia, the children need blood transfusion every three months, but they need transfusion once a month or even after every 15 days in advanced stages of the disease,” said a doctor.
Officials in the health department said that after receiving complaints that screening kits for contagious diseases were unavailable, the department had ordered officials to ensure the supply of the kits to all blood banks, adding that the government would not tolerate lethargy.
Sources said that even blood banks in the public sector hospitals did not have the screening facilities despite the fact that the provincial HIV/Aids Control Programme had provided them with blood screening kits.
Paediatricians said that children receiving blood at the district headquarters hospitals were also at risk.
They said that they needed to be given screened blood so that they could avoid becoming victims of hepatitis.
Health officials said that last year, the government had launched a three-year project costing Rs3 million besides running a public awareness campaign, adding that a ward would be set up at the Lady Reading Hospital.
They said the project had launched a survey to determine the exact number of thalassaemia patients and provide screening facilities to their family members.
