PESHAWAR, Feb 9: The provincial health department has failed to take preventive steps to check the spread of skin diseases in the NWFP, official sources said.

The high prevalence of skin diseases, including leishmaniasis, is evident from various letters addressed to the director-general of health services by executive district officers (health) from Dir, Chitral, D.I. Khan, Kohat, Hangu, Mardan, Nowshera, Malakand, etc., wherein help had been sought from the government to provide treatment facilities to the affected people.

"The health department authorities do not bother to register drugs for leishmaniasis in the medical coordination committee's list despite repeated requests by the WHO," the sources said.

Officials feared that high prevalence of leishmaniasis in the province could result into an epidemic of the disease as the health department had not prepared any programme to check its spread.

Leishmaniasis produces skin lesions mainly on the face, arms and legs. Although in some cases it is self-healing, it can cause serious disabilities and leave permanent scars on the body. Children, especially young girls in age group of 1-5 years, are the common victims.

Earlier, leishmaniasis drugs were used to be smuggled from Iran and sold at Rs100 per vial. But now a Lahore-based firm has started manufacturing these drugs which are available at Rs45 per vial.

The disease was non-existent in the Frontier province till 1979. However, with the arrival of Afghan refugees the disease spread at an alarming pace as Afghanistan is situated on the leishmaniasis belt.

WHO's Emergency Medical Officer Dr Quaid Saeed told Dawn that the disease was fully curable but the treatment should be started immediately so that it could not assume alarming proportions, like it did in the Kurram Agency, where the health's agency had so far treated 2,000 patients.

He said epidemic of leishmaniasis in Dir in 1999 and in Sindh in 2001 should serve as an eye-opener to the health planners. The infection is prevalent in those areas of Sindh which are situated along the border with Balochistan. Dr Saeed said the total cost of the treatment was Rs400, but the problem was that most of the doctors did not know that the drug was available in the city.

According to him, the only way to stop the spread of the disease was to educate the people about the infection and provide them with sleeping nets on subsidised rates to protect them against sand flies. He also suggested spray of insecticides in the affected areas.

Dr Saeed said patients were also being treated at the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims) in Islamabad and other parts of Punjab. He said training of doctors and availability of drugs at the state-run hospitals were of significant importance so that treatment could be provided to the poor people.