Amritsar, November 15
The border belt nowadays is in the grip of Hepatitis C, which is likely to assume alarming proportions in the coming days.
After detection of about 180 cases of hepatitis B, C and HIV virus among special police officers (SPOs) in Tarn Taran district, NGOs have found that villagers of the border belt of Amritsar and Tarn Taran have been greatly infected with hepatitis B.
The border area, which is already reeling under socio-economic depression, is inflicted with a silent killer i.e. hepatitis C. In the absence of adequate healthcare facilities, it poses one of the greatest public health threats to the state.
According to Dr Shavinder Singh Sandhu, hepatitis C will soon kill more people each year than AIDS if preventive measures are not taken.
With the help of Punarjot, an NGO, residents of Narli village on the zero line (Pakistan border) were made aware of ill effects of the contaminated injection therapy prevalent in the villages propagated by many of the so-called RMPs.
Drug addicts represent the most vulnerable group for acquiring intravenously or intramuscularly transmitted viral infections like HIV and hepatitis B and C. Since border areas are under the grip of drug trafficking and addiction, it forms a very lucrative milieu for this to emerge.
An interesting finding of the study conducted on the health status of villages revealed that hepatitis B cases were more due to the consumption of contaminated drinking water.
Dr Sandhu attributes it to the water level, which has gone down, and the septic tanks left at a higher level than the water source. Therefore, because of the percolation and gravitational effects, the contamination of the water is a natural consequence. Once the patient is hepatitis B positive, his conversion to hepatitis C is speeded up by the
local RMPs, who use contaminated syringes. A simple hepatitis B, which is 100 per cent curable, goes into a chronic disease form, taking the shape of a silent killer.
Punarjyot found approximately 70 to 80 hepatitis C positive cases at Narli village alone. Yet, there is a sizeable population literally suffering and not ready to reveal the problem. Alarmed by such a situation, the NGO is now aiding the village to acquire a Central water supply under the World Bank Scheme of the state government.
However, the attitude of the health department is lackadaisical. There are no testing facilities available in the Government Health Centre to isolate the hepatitis C cases, and neither is there any scheme to help patients get access to free medicines like interpheron etc. which have to be taken over a long period of time.
Hepatitis C being a blood-borne, infectious and viral disease caused by a hepatotropic virus called hepatitis C virus, causes liver inflammation that often shows no symptoms till late and it can be years before a patient realises that he is infected.
Dr Sandhu says 80 per cent of the people who have hepatitis C become chronic cases.
