KARACHI- More than 10,000 newly registered Hepatitis B & C patients have continued to suffer as no medicines are available at Hepatitis Centres throughout the province despite the lapse of over three months.
Sources at Hepatitis Prevention & Control Programme, Sindh (Chief Minister Initiative) informed that more than 10,000 newly registered hepatitis B & C throughout province have been put on waiting by the doctors due to shortage medicines at Hepatitis Centres.
The newly registered patients at Hepatitis Centres Civil Hospital Karachi, Abbasi Shaheed Hospital, Sindh Government Qatar Hospital and Sindh Government Hospital Liaquatabad and other government hospitals have been deprived from medicines over three months, causing great hardship for hepatitis patients.
The registered patients in Hyderabad, Mirpurkhas, Sukkur and other districts of province are visiting the Hepatitis Centres on regular basis to get medicines since three months but they are being asked by doctors to buy medicines from private medical stores as supply has not started from Sindh Hepatitis Programme to centers as per demand.
The shortage of medicines in hepatitis centers has badly affected programme performance as treatment of hepatitis patients was very costly and majority of patients could not afford treatment of disease. The shortage of drugs puts lives of score patients suffering from hepatitis B& C at risk as the shortage medicines continue at Hepatitis Centres since long.
Programme Manger, Hepatitis Prevention & Control Program, Sindh, Dr Khadim Qureshi , when contacted, said supply of medicines would be begun to Hepatitis Centres across the Sindh province in a ten days . He informed that demands of drugs were already sent to high ups of health department.