JACOBABAD, Dec 14: The number of hepatitis-C patients is constantly rising because there is no vaccine for the disease at the city’s Civil Hospital, which has not bought the medicines on the pretext of non-release of funds by the health department.

Civil Surgeon Dr Khalid Hussain Bhangar said that the hospital had not received funds from the government. The hospital had 500 registered patients of hepatitis-C and many more were coming for tests and registration of names, he said.

The hospital had carried out tests of 400 people over the past six months and found 200 of them hepatitis-C positive, he said.

Doctors at the hospital said that the situation had become dangerous in the district due to lack of basic health facilities, use of recycled syringes and blood transfusion.

The president of the Jacobabad chapter of Pakistan Medical Association, Dr Gul Mohammad Buriro, said that the poor patients were suffering a lot due to unavailability of medicines. There were about 1,000 more patients who were not registered with the hospital due to unavailability of vaccines, he added.

He said that the DCO had released Rs500,000 to the EDO of health for purchasing vaccines but his office was far from the hospital and the poor patients found it difficult to go there.