KARACHI, Dec 15: In the absence of medicines for hepatitis C treatment supplied under the prime minister’s national programme for hepatitis control and prevention, the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre has started arranging the required drugs with the support of Baitul Mal.
Hospital sources told Dawn that more than 700 patients were registered for provision of hepatitis C treatment with a centre established at the JPMC under the prime minister’s programme. However, the centre was unable to meet the entire requirement in the absence of medicine supply from the federal government.
Like many other centres established under the PM initiative across the province, the hospital has not been provided with hepatitis C treatment drugs since July 2007.
Sindh coordinator for the programme Dr Zulfiqar Ali Gorar had claimed in October that Sindh had received interferon injections meant for a full six-month treatment of about 200 persons from Islamabad after a gap of about one year and that he was in the process of handing those to the registered patients. However, the supply of injections was still awaited at the JPMC, the sources said.
In view of the patients’ pressure due to non-availability of the required medicines, JPMC doctors have decided to utilise Zakat funds available through Baitul Mal for the purpose. A list of about 100 patients had been forwarded to it for the procurement of medicines, the sources said.
In addition to those registered at the JPMC, hepatitis C patients are also enlisted at the Civil Hospital Karachi. It is estimated that 1,000 to 1,200 such patients are waiting for the supply of free medicines under the prime minister’s programme, which was launched in 2005 for a period of five years with a projected cost of Rs2.594 billion.
Sources said that about 10,000 patients, who had been already tested positive for hepatitis C, were desperately waiting for the promised treatment after getting themselves registered at more than 20 federal government’s centres set up across the province.
When contacted, the official in charge of the hepatitis C project at the JPMC, Prof S.M. Munir, said that Baitul Mal had started providing the fund for some registered hepatitis C patients about four months back and about 40 patients had been provided with the relevant treatment under the new arrangement.
In reply to a question, the professor said that the federal government had not at all asked the JPMC to wind up the centre. “It is still being maintained for hepatitis B and C screening, diagnosis, counselling and treatment facilities,” he said. He agreed to the fact that about 600 patients were still waiting for the hepatitis treatment at his centre.
Referring to the plight of Karachi-based patients diagnosed with hepatitis C and registered at the JPMC, which is a federal government entity, provincial health circles were of the view that such patients would have to wait for long, for they were not even in a position to avail themselves of the treatment planned to be offered by the Sindh government under a newly-launched chief minister’s programme for control and prevention of hepatitis in Sindh.