PESHAWAR, March 6: The provincial health department has failed to purchase anti-leishmaniasis drugs for government hospitals in the province, it is learnt.

“Despite high prevalence of the disease in the province, the government is yet to make the drug available in the hospitals. There is no programme in place and the skin disease can hit more people,” said sources at the health department.

They said that the medical coordination committee (MCC) had enlisted the drugs two years ago in view of the rapid spread of the skin disease in the settled parts of the province.

The WHO on several occasions had asked the health department to include anti-leishmaniasis drugs in the MCC's list so that people in the far-flung areas could be provided treatment free of cost.

Sources said the cost of the full dose was Rs200 that contained five injections.

The drugs which were previously not available in the country were now being manufactured by a Lahore-based pharmaceutical firm.

Sources said that most of the cases were being reported from areas bordering Afghanistan such as Chitral and South Waziristan, but patients being poor could not buy the drugs.

They said that the main problem was that people in these areas were illiterate and did not know anything about precautionary measures to protect themselves against the disease.

Leishmaniasis produces skin lesions mainly on the face, arms and legs. Although the disease is often self-healing, yet it can cause disability and permanent scars on the body.

Children, especially girls in the age of 1-5 years, are the common victims.

The high prevalence of the disease in the Frontier province is evident from the letters addressed to the provincial directorate-general of health services by EDOs health from Dir, Chitral, Dera Ismail Khan, Buner, Kohat, Hangu, Mardan, Nowshera and Malakand, wherein help had been sought from the government to provide treatment to the affected people.

After devolution, the EDOs were authorized to purchase drugs.

A WHO official said the disease was 100 per cent curable, but the treatment should be provided immediately so that it could not become epidemic, like in the Kurram Agency where the world health agency had so far treated 2,000 patients.

He said Dir district had experienced the epidemic of leishmaniasis in 1999, Sindh in 2001 and the recent outbreak in Balochistan should serve as an eye-opener for the health planners.