Nurses, technicians, doctors get training on blood-borne hepatitis

NEWDELHI: City’s Institute of Liver and Biliary Sciences (ILBS) is in the process of training nurses, lab technicians and doctors to screen and treat blood-borne hepatitis.

This will help in increasing trained manpower for t he national programme launched this year that aims to eliminate Hepatitis C by 2030 and significantly reduce the burden of Hepatitis B.

Hepatitis is a viral infection that causes inflammation of the liver that can lead to cirrhosis or scarring of the liver and liver cancer.

In India, nearly 40 million are infected by Hepatitis B and about six to 12 million with Hepatitis C.

“For Hepatitis C, there are now medicines that can completely cure the disease. The treatment cost is about ₹7,000 for three months. Hepatitis B can be eliminated by 2080 if every newborn is vaccinated and everyone currently living with the disease is treated,” Dr SK Sarin, director of ILBS, said during the 21st Hepatitis Day celebrations on Tuesday.

Six-time world boxing champion Mary Kom was also present at the event, where she spoke about the challenges she had to overcome and inspired schoolchildren to persevere. She extended her support to the cause of creating awareness about Hepatitis.

Under t he training programme, for which the ILBS will tie up with nursing colleges, 20,000 nurses will be trained by next year.

Nearly 1,100 nurses have already been trained under the programme.

To support the initiative of ILBS, which is an autonomous institute under the Delhi govern- ment, the state government had launched a testing and medicine programme in five of its hospitals.

The national programme will expand the reach of such smaller programme by creating awareness to prevent the infection, diagnosing and treating patients and creating a surveillance.

The programme will establish a National Viral Hepatitis Management Unit, and a similar unit at state and district level under its National Health Mission.

But, there needs to be a plan in place.

“To achieve the targets, the government has to focus on hot spots such as Punjab and the Northeast where the prevalence is higher — up to 5% or 6% of the population. Here, the government need to conduct door-todoor screening because the virus can live in a person without causing symptoms,” Dr Sarin said.