PESHAWAR: The Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors without Borders) will establish a centre in Bannu to provide treatment to the people infected with Cutaneous Leishmaniasis, especially the patients belonging to tribal districts.

The MSF set up the first-ever centre for treatment of leishmaniasis at Naseerullah Khan Babar Memorial Hospital Peshawar in May last year in collaboration with health department that had provided free treatment to 2,329 patients so far. Upon completion of one year, it was decided to open a new centre in view of increasing cases coming from the tribal and southern districts.

MSF country representative Thomas Balivet told Dawn that he had announced setting up the facility after analysing the one-year report of the Peshawar centre that showed that another facility was needed with a capacity to hospitalise 300 patients every month.

“The services will begin in September this year,” he said.

Mr Balivet said that number of leishmaniasis patients coming for treatment kept rising since start of work in Peshawar, mostly due to public’s confidence. He said that cure rate at the centre was 96 per cent.

He said that the patients, who visited the centre, included 1,447 male and 882 female. He said that 992 of them belonged to Peshawar, 320 to Nowshera, 255 to Khyber and 145 to other districts. About 300 patients, who needed consistent observation, required admission every month. The centre received patients from different districts during the past one year.

Mr Balivet said that Cutaneous Leishmaniasis, a parasitic skin infection caused by bite of a phlebotomine sandfly, was a public health issue in Pakistan. He said that despite not being a life threatening disease, it could cause severe physical disfigurement and patients ended up facing stigmatisation and discrimination.

“MSF has launched a campaign to scale up public awareness regarding prevention and control of the ailment by organising community level sessions in Peshawar, especially in the area where the disease is prevalent,” he said.

However, the first-line treatment of CL is meglumine antimoniate, which is not produced locally.

Mr Balivet said owing to short supply of the medicine and lack of trained staff, the patients often received inadequate dosage and MSF backed the government to ensure specialised diagnostic and treatment through steady supply of safe and effective medication.

“To put brakes on outbreak of Cutaneous Leishmaniasis, we want availability of affordable medication to treat patients,” he said.

He said that MSF, the main source of treatment for leishmaniasis patients in Pakistan, ran programmes in Quetta and Kuchlak in Balochistan and provided free of cost services to 5,000 patients in one year. The organisation was also conducting a research to look for alternative treatment options, he said.

Mr Balivet said that MSF was s an international and independent organisation, providing medical and humanitarian aid to needy people in about 70 countries.

For its activities in Pakistan, MSF does not accept funding from any government or institution, rather relies solely on private donations from around the world. It works in close collaboration with health authorities to address some of the urgent medical emergencies in the country.

Meanwhile, the health department, which has reported 25,000 leishmaniasis cases, has been providing medication to the people.

The World Health Organisation has given 50,000 injections to the health department. It has also been calling on the government to register the injections in the country as the disease is prevalent in every district but the drug is not available. As a result, the government relies on WHO and MSF for treatment of leishmaniasis patients.

Published in Dawn, July 1st, 2019