Joint strategy stressed to eradicate hepatitis

LAHORE: Specialised Healthcare and Medical Education (SHME) Secretary Najam Ahmad Shah Tuesday said all the specialised healthcare institutions would adopt a joint strategy to eradicate liver and kidney diseases, especially Hepatitis. According to a handout, he said this while chairing a joint meeting of all the stakeholders for the eradication of liver and kidney diseases in Punjab.

Pakistan Kidney & Liver Transplantation & Research Center (PKLI&RC) President Dr Saeed Akhtar, PKLI team, Health Development Special Secretary Usman Muazzam, Mujahid Sher Dil, Additional Secretary Development Shahid Rehman, Chief Planning Officer Abdul Haq Bhatti, Post Graduate Medical Institute Principal Prof Dr Ghias-un-Nabi Tayyab, Hepatitis Control Programme Deputy Manager Dr Shaban, Internal Policy & Strategic Planning Unit Chief Executive Professor Ahsan Waheed Rathor, SHME Consultant Aimen Majeed and others attended the meeting. The meeting was informed under the programme, some 26,00,000 people had been vaccinated against Hepatitis-B so far.

Najam Ahmad said a scope of working of all the stakeholders should be prepared and all the specialised institutions of urology and kidney diseases of Multan, Bahawalpur, Rawalpindi and PKLI must be taken on board so a consolidated data of the patients could be gathered. 17 Gastroenterology units were being setup in the tertiary care hospitals, he added.