KARACHI, April 13: A local incineration plant and some diagnostic facilities will be provided to the Civil Hospital Karachi soon under the prime minister’s programme for prevention and control of hepatitis.

A decision to this effect was taken at a meeting of the committee for Viral Hepatitis Prevention and Control under the prime minister’s programme held at the hospital on Saturday. Among others, the PM’s programme coordinator in Sindh, Dr Zulfiqar Ali Gorar, CHK Medical Superintendent Dr Kaleem Butt, Chief Pathologist Dr Umerdraz, and AMS Dr Abdul Qadir Siddiqui attended the meeting.

Dr Gorar informed the meeting that the PM’s programme was aimed at treatment and prevention of hepatitis B and C.

The estimated cost of the Prime Minister’s Programme for Prevention and Control of Hepatitis launched in August 2005 was about Rs2.58 billion to be spent in five years. Besides ensuring treatment resources, including Interferon injection, the programme envisages measures for safe blood transfusion, use of sterilised medical equipment at government and private hospitals and prohibition of the reuse of hospital wastes, including the syringes, which could cause further spread of hepatitis.

The meeting noted that the number of hepatitis patients reporting to the CHK was increasing with the passage of time and stressed the need for provision of medicine for their treatment under the programme.

It was decided that the hospital’s central laboratory would be provided Elisa kits to improve diagnostic facilities for the screening of hepatitis patients on a regular basis. The Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) diagnostic facility would be extended to the patients with the facility of transportation for samples. PCR is a biochemistry and molecular biology technique for isolating and exponentially amplifying a fragment or sequence of interest of DNA, via enzymatic replication, without using a living organism (such as E. coli or yeast).

Initially, a limited number of hepatitis cases would be registered at the CHK for complete diagnosis. After their treatment, the patients would be given expensive medicines and injection under the PM’s programme.

The meeting was informed that the CHK would get about 12,000 vials of Hepatitis B vaccine to benefit healthcare workers of the hospital and their families. The programme would also extend support to vaccinate other high risk groups, i.e. patients of dialysis, mentally-retarded persons, thalasaemics, hemophellic and newborn babies.

When contacted, Dr Gorar said under the PM programme installation of incinerators with a capacity of burning about 100kg medical waste per hour would be completed during the ongoing financial year, while another incinerator for the CHK would be provided on a priority basis in the coming financial year (2008-09). The locally-manufactured incinerators would cover the scientific and environmental aspects of a safe medical waste disposal, he added.

Anticipating that Sindh government would provide money towards achievement of some of the PM programme objectives, Dr Gorar said that it had been agreed in principle that the provincial government should be approached for allocating funds for the first public sector PCR diagnostic equipment of the province at the CHK under the umbrella of PM Programme for Prevention and Control of Hepatitis.