NAUDERO, Sindh: hepatitis is on a sharp rise in rural Sindh and now even cases of this disease are being found in children.
Recently, when 200 primary class students were checked here, two of them were detected suffering from Hepatitis C and B.
According to details, 5th class students Gul Khan son of Gulsher Khuhro was detected as suffering from Hepatitis C and Shahban Ali son of Karim Bux, 4th class primary students was detected carrying Hepatitis B. Blood screening camp was organized by Integrated Health Services in which as many as 200 primary boys and girl students were screened at Shaheed Mujahid Mirani Memorial Government Primary School here on Monday. Parents of both the students were immediately called and informed about the disease their kids were infected with.
They were also informed to get Alisa and PCR test done from the Chandka Medical College Hospital through Rural Health Center of Naundero which is being looked after by IHS under Private & Public Partnership program initiated by the Sindh Government. After these two tests treatment will be provided free of cost.
The remaining 198 students of the school were vaccinated preventive injections. As this school has about 1000 students’ enrolment hence screening will continue for two more days.
This preventive program has been initiated by Commissioner Larkana Muhammad Abbas Baloch and is only confined for the students of Larkana district aged between 5 to 12 years. Target for Larkana taluka is 37000 students which has been assigned to DHO, said Dr. Khalil Ahmed Katpar, District Manager IHS Larkana, while talking to DT here on Monday.
He said IHS will be looking after the vaccination drive of Ratodero taluka and target for this tehsil is 41,000 students and next week we will screen students of schools of village Pir Jo Goth.
PPHI has been given two taluka namely Bakrani and Dokri to screen and vaccinate hepatitis preventive injections to the students to control spread of this deadly viral disease and target for these two tehsils is 34,000 students.
In this connection a meeting was also held in Larkana on Monday under the chairmanship of Commissioner Baloch in which Chandka Hospital Medical Superintendent undertook to provide 40,000 kits, 20,000 for Hepatitis C and 20,000 for Hepatitis B out of which 10,000 kits have been handed over to IHS today. Likewise PPHI’s Riaz Memon also promised to provide 20,000 kits for the screening to meet the target.