Posted: 4-Jul-2006 << BACK
Patients rubbish health dept's Hepatitis C survey
A week after The Times of India highlighted the epidemic-like spread of Hepatitis C in Bagha Purana town of Moga, the health department authorities claimed to have detected 87 cases in last three days.
While health department authorities claimed that 30 employees carried out a door-to-door survey of 4286 households in three days, but a large number of patients suffering from the disease said that they were not contacted by any member of the survey teams nor were they counted among the 87 detected cases.
So, it is believed that the number of patients is much higher than what the health department claims. Civil Surgeon Moga HP Singh claimed that the team visited 4268 households and detected 87 patients among 26,183 residents of the town. While 52 of the Hepatitis C patients are males, 35 are females
.
He said that information about 69 cases was collected from the clinical laboratories and doctors in the town; 12 others were old patients, getting treatment from private doctors. The survey teams detected six new cases during t he examination of 35 blood samples.
HP Singh claimed that the blood samples of only suspected cases were taken.
Most families are challenging the genuineness of the survey based on taking 35 blood samples out of 26,183 residents. "It is a mere eyewash, nothing else," alleged Sat Pal, who is suffering from the disease for the last four years.
He said no member of survey team reached his locality. Ahswani Kumar Sahi, Aasha Rani Sahi, Parveen Kumar, Tina Bansal and many other hepatitis C patients in the town, too said the same.
Residents of some localities visited by survey team members told TOI that they were asked "those having symptoms like vomiting, nausea or loose motion should come forward". This is the way a town was surveyed in three days for detection of Hepatitis C disease!
