KARACHI, Dec 29: Healthcare experts on Thursday expressed deep concern over the rising prevalence of Hepatitis B in the country and called for urgent steps to check the dangerous trend.

Addressing the concluding session of the annual symposium of the Dow University of Health Sciences (DUHS), Prof Wasim Jafri in his presentation of “Hepatitis B; Update on Management” said the prevalence of Hepatitis B in Pakistan was from two to seven per cent and the trend was rising.

He said the number of carriers was enormous and the situation would become highly complicated if serious and massive preventive measures were not taken on an urgent basis.

Defining the ‘spectrum of disease’, Prof Jafri spelled out the aims of therapy into short, long and ultimate goals. He underscored the need for public awareness on a mass scale in order to inform people about the preventive and treatment aspects of the disease.

In his presentation on “Management of Hepatitis C: A Clinical Update”, Prof Syed A Samad said that combination of therapy with pegylated interferon alfa and ribavrin now eliminated detectable Hepatitis C virus from the blood of more than half the patients with long-term infections.

However, many of those infected with Hepatitis C had a low rate of response to therapy and were susceptible to drug side-effects that limited adherence to therapy, he said.

He said special strategies for limiting medication side-effects and enhancing overall clinical and economic outcomes would become more important.

Dr Rana Qamar in her presentation on “Hepatitis B and C: Experience at Sarwar Zuberi Liver Centre (SZLC)”, spoke at length about her team’s experiences and observations at the centre.

She said activities included formulation of strategies for prevention of liver diseases, screening suspected patients and their treatment, and postgraduate education in the subject.

She said the centre was especially targeting young people because the transmission rate among them was very high. Giving the centre’s profile in its initial year, she said 10 per cent of patients had Hepatitis B, while 90 per cent had Hepatitis C.

Dr Tahir Shamsi speaking on “Massive Postpartum Haemorrhage (PPH); Role of Recombinant Factor VII A” discussed the hazards of massive blood transfusion. He termed PPH a nightmare for obstetricians.

He added that the incidence of maternal deaths in Pakistan was 5.3 deaths per 1,000 women, which was alarmingly high.

Citing a survey carried out in the cities of Larkana, Hyderabad, Peshawar, Quetta and Karachi, he said 30 to 40 per cent maternal moralities were due to postpartum haemorrhage.

A number of invited lectures and free papers discussed a variety of issues, including “Operative Laparoscopy in Gynaecology” by Dr Ghazala Mahmood and “Reproductive Health Services at the CHK” by Rukhsana Mughul.

Dr Haleema speaking on “Metabolic Syndrome; Impact on Child Bearing Females” said the syndrome represented a heterogeneous group of metabolic disorders, the central component of which was insulin resistance.

She said there was good evidence that nutrition played an important role in the development and progression of the syndrome.

Terming it a “ticking time bomb”, she said the metabolic syndrome of the 21st century had an important role in various gynaecological problems, adding that the interaction between genetic and dietary backgrounds were important causative factors for the syndrome.

She said family physicians should play an very important role towards inculcating among people a right sense of healthy lifestyle.

Dr Abdul Rehman, a renowned psychiatrist from Canada discussed the disorder of attention deficit hyperactivity in children.

He said the prevalence of the disorder was five to 16 per cent in the US and similar in Pakistan. “This has a large impact on learning abilities of school-age children.”

He said extraordinary measures were needed to address the issue as the medical treatment of the disorder was very effective.—PPI