www. biospectrumindia. com | November 2017 | BioSpectrum l WORLD NEWS
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Pakistan launches its first Hepatitis Strategic Framework
Relying on weak epidemiological data due to the absence of a national hepatitis surveillance system, Pakistan’ s first National Hepatitis Strategic Framework( NHSF) 2017-2021 was launched in Islamabad with a target to reduce chronic cases of Hepatitis B and C by 10 per cent, and new cases of Hepatitis B and C by 30 per cent. The target is the first milestone to be achieved by 2021 as part of the larger vision to eliminate viral hepatitis as a major public health threat by 2030.
The NHSF was launched by the Pakistan Health Research Council( PHRC), the Ministry of Health, and the World Health Organization( WHO) in the presence of the Director General of WHO Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Regional Head of WHO Dr Mahmoud Fikri, and the minister and secretary of health Saira Afzal and Muhammad Ayub Sheikh respectively, among others. Consultant gastroenterologist Dr Huma Qureshi, former head of PHRC, shared the salient features of the NHSF.
One of the key objectives of
the strategy is to obtain a yearly increase in the diagnosis and treatment of Hepatitis B and C cases, and a yearly decrease in the number of new infections. How these objectives can be achieved in the absence of real-time data is a tough question to answer. Pakistan does not have a national hepatitis surveillance system, and as such, epidemiological data are weak. Federal and provincial data are often inadequate or not up to date. As such, the NHSF is based on limited epidemiological findings of the 2008 National Hepatitis Survey. The implementation of high-impact and targeted interventions will remain a far cry in the absence of more accurate data.
Sri Lanka takes up infectious diseases as a major concern
Sri Lanka’ s Health Ministry is planning to take steps to develop the National Institute of Infectious Diseases( IDH) in Angoda as an Infectious Diseases Teaching Hospital in the future. Sri Lanka’ s Minister of Health, Nutrition and Indigenous Medicine, Dr Rajitha Senaratne has asked the officials to provide him with the plans to develop the hospital within six months and he will allocate the funding.
The number of reported dengue cases saw a huge rise and the government took various measures to prevent the spread of the disease. The disease was controlled due to the proper treatment services delivered by the National Institute of Infectious Diseases, The Negombo General Hospital and all other island wide hospitals to the patients.
The Minister noted that there were around 600 patients in the 180-bed IDH and the hospital staff worked collectively to treat the patients. He said the Ministry provided everything the hospitals needed and due to the lack of space for patients, the Sri Lankan Army built temporary buildings.
UN starts cholera vaccinations in Bangladesh
UN agencies and Bangladesh’ s health ministry began a massive cholera immunization campaign to stem a possible outbreak of the water-borne disease among more than a half million Rohingya Muslims who have fled violence in Myanmar to neighboring Bangladesh.
No cases of the potentially life-threatening diarrheal disease have yet appeared in makeshift camps in Bangladesh. UNICEF said the vaccination campaign involves 900,000 doses of the vaccine delivered by more than 200 mobile teams, making it the secondlargest oral vaccination campaign of its kind, after another in Haiti last year. The campaign will also target residents of older refugee camps that have existed in Bangladesh since the 1990s.
The World Health Organization has tallied some 10,000 cases of diarrhea among the refugees, and says unhygienic and cramped conditions raise the potential for a cholera outbreak. The first round of the cholera vaccination campaign will cover 650,000 people age one and older. The second round will target 250,000 children between one and five years with an additional dose of the vaccine for added protection.