Hepatitis is affecting about 400 million people, while in Pakistan about 10 million people, almost 6 percent of the total population, are infected with hepatitis C.

This was stated at a lecture organised by the Dr Panjwani Centre for Molecular Medicine and Drug Research (PCMD).

It was pointed out that hepatitis is an inflammation of the liver, generally due to a viral infection or some metabolic abnormalities.

In his lecture, Prof Dr Aqeel Ahmed of the Department of Microbiology, University of Karachi, expressed apprehension that mortality rates due to hepatitis-C are expected to go up in future.

The topic of his talk was: `HCV: Disease and Prevention’. The lecture was jointly organised by PCMD and the Virtual Education Project Pakistan (VEPP) as a part of series of lectures to raise public awareness on diseases common in Pakistan.

Health professionals, students, research scholars, NGO representatives and general public attended the lecture.

Prof Ahmed said that these unrelated viruses had different epidemiologic profiles and were transmitted through different routes which are either waterborne or spread through blood, blood products, or unethical medical or social practices.

He said that the hepatitis viruses produced inflammation in the liver, resulting in clinical illness characterised by fever, and often non-specific symptoms like pain in abdomen, loss of appetite, nausea, vomiting and jaundice.

“More than 70 percent of HCV-infected patients become chronic, which may lead to death.”

Prof Ahmed said that the disease had immense financial implications, so its early detection and treatment was highly recommended. Genotypes 3a and 3b, amongst 11 genotypes of hepatitis, are found to be the most common in some regions of the world.

He stated that patients with these genotypes also had good chances of response rate to therapy. There are some host factors attributed to increased risk of HCV infection, including older age, male gender, co-infection with HIV and HBV. Other factors such as alcohol consumption, iron overload and hepatotoxic medicines also have damaging effects.

Patients with chronic hepatitis C can develop many extra hepatic symptoms like rheumatoid arthritis, kerato-conjunctivitis, glomerulonephritis and lymphoma which are probably due to altered immune response.

Psychological disorders like depression are seen in about 20 to 30 percent patients.

Talking about prevention of the fatal disease, he said that there are some important preventive measures that include increasing awareness of disease; blood screening before transfusion; avoiding re-use of syringes and sharing common household items such as razors and tooth brushes; training of healthcare workers; treating Hepatitis-C patients with appropriate drugs including interferon and Ribavirin.

http://www.thenews.com.pk

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