KARACHI: The Sindh health minister has said the incidence of hepatitis B and C had not increased as certain recent reports claimed. He, however, did not elaborate whether the provincial government was close to its ambitious plan to eradicate the fatal disease by 2018 as it had promised last year, it emerged on Tuesday.

Sindh Health Minister Dr Sikandar Mandhro stated that certain reports in the media claiming the death of “some people” in northern Sindh caused by hepatitis bore no truth.

Particularly indicating the death of a middle-aged woman in Kandhkot, Dr Mandhro said she died of liver cancer and not hepatitis.

“She was suffering from liver cancer, thus, hepatitis did not cause her death,” claimed the minister.

He added that not a single case of death caused by hepatitis was reported to his office from Kashmore-Kandhkot district.

“The health ministry had established camps and carried out a campaign in the district to vaccinate against hepatitis just a month ago, which was well-received by people in the area,” he said.

“The fears being instilled in the general public about the spread of hepatitis in Sindh are not correct. Not a single out of 29 districts of the province returned facts which corroborate such baseless claims.”

He said his ministry was taking effective measures to improve healthcare delivery system in Sindh.

However, experts said unlike the minister’s claim, hepatitis B and C were among the key causes of liver cancer that led to the death of the woman in Kandhkot.

“Primary liver cancer [hepatocellular carcinoma] tends to occur in livers damaged by birth defects, alcohol abuse, or chronic infection with diseases such as hepatitis B and C, hemochromatosis [a hereditary disease associated with too much iron in the liver], and cirrhosis,” said an expert.

Former Sindh chief minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah had pledged last year that his government would make Sindh a hepatitis-free province by 2018. However, officials admitted, the situation was not close to the claims made by the incumbent and past governments.

There were over three million hepatitis carriers (patients) in Sindh when Mr Shah launched the Hepatitis Prevention and Control Programme in 2009 costing Rs 2.7 billion with the objective to take preventive and curative measures and to launch public awareness campaign.

However, a recent official survey conducted to ascertain the number of hepatitis patients in Sindh revealed around three million hepatitis carriers in the province, of them 2.5 per cent suffered from hepatitis B and 4.9pc had hepatitis C, showing no reduction in the patients. The programme was extended further for another three years at a cost of Rs3.315bn.

Officials said the health ministry had increased availability of screening. Besides, they added, the ministry had mobilised its teams at grassroots to arrange for hepatitis screening and vaccination camps, particularly in the high-risk areas.

Published in Dawn, September 6th, 2017