RAWALPINDI, May 21: Gastro-intestinal (GI) and liver diseases accounted for 26 per cent of deaths in the city’s teaching hospitals during the past four years.

This was stated in a report prepared by the Rawalpindi Medical College on the cases of GI and liver diseases reported to the city’s teaching hospitals.

It showed that the two diseases were among the leading causes of deaths in Rawalpindi and its adjoining areas.

The other major causes of deaths in these hospitals have been noted as paralysis and heart diseases, accounting for 16 per cent and 15 per cent deaths, respectively.

The report noted that the GI and liver diseases had spread in the last decade because of an increase in Hepatitis-B and C prevalence.

The various causes of liver diseases mentioned in the report are: Hepatitis-B, 18.8 per cent; Hepatitis-C, 51.2 per cent; Hepatitis-B and C, 16.6 per cent; unknown virology, 10.2 per cent; others, 2.9 per cent.

In Pakistan, the report says, Hepatitis-B carrier rate is 5- 10 per cent, while that of Hepatitis-C is 4-7 per cent. “Many of these patients end up with chronic Hepatitis, Cirrhosis, End Stage Liver Disease and Hepatocellular Carcinoma.

“They repeatedly get admitted to hospitals or visit the out- patient department (OPD) with complications like GI bleeding, Encephlopathy, Hepatocellular Carcinoma, Ascites, Hepato-renal and Hepato-pulmonary problems,” the report said.

The percentage of patients admitted to hospitals with GI and liver complications varied from 22 per cent to 26 per cent during the past four years. The two diseases also remained in the first two causes of admissions to hospitals.

The emergency ward data analysis in the report showed that the GI and liver emergencies were quite frequent.

Among the patients reporting to the OPD, the report said, Dysepsia and Epigastric pain were the most common symptoms in GI patients. On the other hand, Ascites, Jaundice and GI bleeding were common symptoms in liver ailments.

The medical superintendent of District Headquarters Hospital, Dr Zubair Hassan, commenting on the report, said: “We had been sitting on a dynamite that has now exploded and this problem would continue to haunt us in future.”

The modes of transmission of Hepatitis — the major cause of liver diseases — include improper blood transfusion practices, use of poorly-sterilized surgical instruments, sexual transmission, faulty hospital waste management methods, inferior- quality syringes, barber’s shaving kit, dental procedures and vertical transmission.

It is worth mentioning here that the Punjab Blood Transfusion Department has not been providing blood-screening kits to blood banks for quite sometime now.

The GI and lever diseases, it is noted, are more prevalent in areas having extreme poverty, rapid urbanization, inadequate sewerage disposal, poor public health education and lack of clean drinking water.

These diseases are burdening the financial, laboratory, manpower, blood bank and logistic resources of hospitals, besides creating financial and social problems for the patient’s families, the report said.