Punjab Health Department has marked success by enrolling more than 10,000 cases of Hepatitis-C for treatment under Mukh Mantri Hepatitis-C Relief Fund, launched on June 18 to ensure free treatment facility to people suffering from Hepatitis-C.
Under the initiative, drugs are provided free of cost to the patients to bring down direct cost of the treatment along with indirect travel expenses for travelling to Chandigarh or other bigger cities for treatment by ensuring the availability of drugs at nearby government health institutions.
The treatment of Hepatitis-C is now available at 25 Centres, including Three Government Medical Colleges and 22 district hospitals) in the State, said the state Principal Secretary (Health) Vini Mahajan.
“Since there is no national or state programme for HCV so the exact data of HCV prevalence in the community was not available. The scheme was planned keeping in view data captured in certain studies, about prevalence of HCV in different parts and socioeconomic groups of general population,” she said.
She said that the scheme was prepared by experts in Herpetology from PGIMER and state of Punjab for testing and treatment of Hepatitis-C cases. The medical and
paramedical staff of the designated 25 hospitals have been sensitized and trained in treatment of Hepatitis-C, she added.
Mahajan revealed that within two and a half months of launch of this scheme, more than 10,000 cases of Hepatitis-C have been put on treatment across the State.
Out of these, nearly 1500 cases had cirrhosis of liver and provision of free treatment to these cases of Hepatitis-C has been beneficial in preventing the complications in future, she said adding that the objective is to decrease the load of infection of Hepatitis-C in the general population.
In another effort to monitor the Hepatitis-C treatment, the department is developing a tool for monitoring and evaluation of the programme in association with CHAI (Clinton Health Access Initiative), which will help in analyzing the problem statement and plan for future.