KASUR, Sept 16: Several factors are to blame for the rapid spread of different categories of hepatitis, deadly among them are B and C, in Pattoki tehsil.

According to a survey conducted by Dawn, a good number people in urban and rural areas are infected with hepatitis A, B and C.

Pattoki THQ Hospital former medical superintendent Dr A.G Sajid says that hepatitis A is caused by the contaminated drinking water and insanitation while B and C are the direct result of the unscreened blood transfusion and other body fluids.

Dr Sajid blamed barbers, reused syringes, transfusion of unscreened blood and unsafe sex for the rapid spread of hepatitis in Pattoki that comprised more than 300 villages.

He said that the doctors at the state-run and private hospitals in the tehsil seldom bothered to get the screened blood before being transfused into patients, particularly at the time of surgery.

Besides, he said the lack of proper sterilization facility of surgical equipment was another reason for contributing to the stretch of hepatitis.

He said that hepatitis A was curable if treated properly while the patients of B were on the decline due to the availability of vaccination.

He, however, said that the menace of hepatitis B could be checked significantly if the government launched an awareness campaign among the masses to get them vaccinated. The government should also provide vaccination free of cost to every citizen to purge completely at least the scourge of hepatitis B from the society.

Dr Muhammad Iftikhar Rana, the Pakistan Society of Family Physician president, said that unlike hepatitis B the patients of hepatitis C were on the rise because still there was no breakthrough in the development of its vaccine.

Dr Rana said aside from quacks, doctors conducting endoscopy and dialysis at government and private hospitals without properly sterilized equipment were also adding to the patients of the hepatitis B and C.

He said that untrained traditional birth attendants were also playing their part in the spread of disease by using unsafe and unhygienic methods at the time of delivery.

He said that tests and treatment of hepatitis C were quite expensive and only a marginalized population could afford them.

Dr Rana urged the government to make urgent arrangements for free of cost tests and treatment facilities at the state-run hospitals for hepatitis C patients lest the situation spiraling out of control.

He said the success ratio among the hepatitis C patients was from 40 to 80 per cent, depending upon the genotype of every patient, if a combination therapy, spanning a period from six months to one year, was provided to them.

Pattoki THQ Hospital MS Dr Masood Tariq lamented that the hospital had neither a blood bank nor any facility to screen blood for transfusion into patients.

He said the rich got the blood tested from private laboratories while unscreened blood obtained mostly from addicts was the fate of the poor.

Dr Tariq said the government had not even provided the kits necessary to diagnose hepatitis patients who were multiplying in the area alarmingly.

Despite repeated reminders, he said, the authorities concerned seemed to have turned a blind eye to the provision of the diagnostic kits to the THQ Hospital.

As far as the sewerage system in Pattoki was concerned, several parts of it present a bleak picture. Overflowing gutters in the Main Bazaar, Rail Bazaar, Chowk Chahlar, Halla Chowk, Shadman Chowk, Quaid-i-Azam Road, Abbas Road and Barafkhana Road were playing havoc with the health of residents.