6pc people carry hepatitis viruses

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Md Mahabub Alam :
About six per cent people in the country carry hepatitis viruses causing death to a large number of patients ever year, according to Hepatology Department of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University (BSMMU).
The viruses include A, B and C. Of them, B and C viruses attack liver and make cirrhosis and cancer in it.
Most of the hepatitis B, C patients die while a very few of them can survive through maintaining preventive ways.
If any one is diagnosed with the elements in the middle or in the last stage, he or she has no option but to transplant liver, said doctors. But there is no hospital in our country where liver can be transplanted. Some hospitals in India can carry out such operation but it needs Taka one crore as the minimum cost.
Doctors of the concerned department say, about 15,000 patients affected in hepatitis A, B and C used to come to MSMMU to take Medicare facilities every year. Of them, 600 are found affected with liver cirrhosis and cancer. More than 95 per cent of them die sooner or later.
Sources in BSMMU said, the government has no plan now to set up any liver transplant unit in the hospital. If there is any, they must have known it, they said.
Freedom Fighter Alhaj Joinuddin Molla, who once dreamt of Bangladesh a self-reliant independent country, is now suffering from liver cirrhosis.
He is under treatment at Ibne Sina Hospital at Dhanmondi. Doctors said that his liver has totally damaged. He can be survived only by transplanting his liver.
His daughter Laila Jahan Juhi told The New Nation yesterday that Tk one crore would be needed to transplant her father’s liver and that is beyond their reach. She said the state should come forward with a helping hand towards this critically suffering freedom fighter.
Professor Dr Salimur Rahman, Head of the Hepatology Department of BSMMU said there has been treatment facilities for the patients who are in the primary stage, adding that this disease can never be eradicated.
No treatment can be supportive when a patient reaches at the middle or at the final stage, he said.
In our country, some expert doctors of Labaid and Bardem hospitals with the help of some Indian physicians have so far transplanted four livers at a cost of Tk 20 to 25 lakh, he said. Of the amount, Tk 1,500,000 had to be given to the Indian doctors for each operation.
If the government can set up a department where only the liver will be installed in affected patients, the death rate by the liver cirrhosis and cancer could minimized to a large extent, said BDMMU Professor.
Use of infected blood and one syringe for many patients, illicit relations between male and female, and eating of unhygienic foods are some of the reasons behind the diseases. Weaknesses, vomiting tendency and yellow complexion in skins are some of the symptoms of the disease, he added.
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