LARKANA, Feb 22: The leishmania skin disease has attained epidemic proportion in the district amid a severe shortage of injections needed to treat it.

According to sources in the health department, around 30 new cases of the disease, both in the initial and advanced stages of infection, are being reported at the outpatient department in the Chandka Medical College Hospital on daily basis. Besides, the taluka hospitals in Larkana and Shahdadkot districts are frequented by the patients.

The patients roam from pillar to post to get medicines in the government-run hospitals in both the districts but to no avail as the stock of medicines, particularly Gulcantine injection, has exhausted.

Neither the Sindh nor the district government had provided the injections to the district health office or the CMCH since the appearance of leishmania in Larkana district in 2001, a doctor in the skin department of the hospital said.

Previously only the World Health Organization, National Institute of Health and managements of the LASMO and PPL had provided injections but in limited quantity, he added. A patient told this correspondent in the OPD that the injection was also in short supply in the market and he had bought one for Rs 150 against its actual price of Rs30.

A representative of the Druggists and Chemists Association, Larkana, confirming the shortage of the medicines in the market, said that the injection was unregistered in Pakistan and being smuggled from Iran through Balochistan. He proposed import of the injection from Iran.

Dr Farooque Soomro said that without killing sand-fly, whose bite caused the disease, it was not possible to curb spread of leishmania. He said that some experts from Japan and the HEJ Institute of Chemistry were busy conducting experiments on extracts from medicinal plants in Larkana district to prepare a medicine for the disfiguring disease. An ointment prepared from the garlic extract had proved effective against leishmania, he added.