With the theme “Prevent Hepatitis: It’s up to you,” the World Hepatitis Day 2016 is being marked here on Thursday (today) to create public awareness about the disease and prevent a possible outbreak.
To mark the day, walks, seminars, workshops, scientific sessions and medical camps will be arranged. As per statistics, hepatitis affects hundreds of millions of people world-wide, causing acute and chronic disease and killing close to 1.4 million people every year.
The WHO estimates that across the world more than 400 million people live with Hepatitis B and C and 1.4 million dies every year. Hepatitis can be prevented through awareness that could help improve vaccinations, and teach about safe blood transfusions and unsafe injection use. Unfortunately, this day is usually neglected in our country.
The Sindh Institute of Urology and Transplantation (SIUT) has chalked out an elaborate programme on the day for public education and awareness.
The Aga Khan University Hospital organised an awareness session. The theme of the session is “Let’s eliminate Hepatitis”.
-CM Shehbaz Message-
Punjab Chief Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif in his message on World Hepatitis Day said that hepatitis was a fatal disease and preventive measures were essential.
He said that prevention was better than cure and all out measures should be taken against this disease. He said that there was a need for promoting public awareness against hepatitis.
Shehbaz Sharif said that the purpose of observing Hepatitis Day was to inform the people how to protect themselves from this disease.
He said that the Punjab government was providing all out facilities for the treatment of hepatitis patients and a project had been evolved for setting up Pakistan Kidney & Liver Transplant Institute and Research Center in Lahore.
The Chief Minister said that this project would prove to be a milestone in the provision of modern treatment facilities to hepatitis patients.
He said that this state-of-the-art institute would provide free treatment to poor patients while research work would also be carried out on liver diseases.
