HYDERABAD, March 25: The vice-chancellor of the Liaquat University of Medical and Health Sciences (LUMHS)

Prof Noshad Ahmed Shaikh said on Tuesday that the situation with regard to increase in hepatitis patients in the interior of Sindh had become alarming.

He said during his presidential address at a seminar on hepatitis organised by the university at Jamshoro campus that the university’s laboratory would provide diagnostic and testing facilities for the poor hepatitis patients.

He laid stress on early diagnosis of the disease for an effective treatment and pointed out that diagnostic facilities in the interior of the province were not only limited but they were also very costly and beyond the reach of common man.

The university’s high-tech molecular biology laboratory would provide diagnostic and testing facilities to the poor without any taking any profit.

The director of Pakistan Baitul Maal Mr Nadeem offered financial help for the laboratory from Baitul Maal funds while the provincial coordinator of Prime Minister’s Programme on Hepatitis Dr Zulfiqar Gorar highlighted salient features of the programme.

The seminar was attended by a large number of doctors, pathologists and medical superintendent of different government hospitals besides the director general of Health Services Dr Ghulam Nabi Memon, Prof Khaliq Ahmed Shaikh and Dr Samiullah.

SURGICON: A two-day first ever National Surgical Conference titled “Surgicon 2008” aimed at introducing the latest surgical techniques would be held on March 29 and 30 under the aegis of Society of Surgeons of Pakistan, said Prof Surgeon Abdul Razzaq Shaikh at a news conference at the press club on Tuesday.