Indore : On the second day of the 56th Annual Gastroenterology Conference, ISGCON-15, the experts have laid emphasis on providing free vaccines of Hepatitis-B to people and requested the government to take immediate action in this regard.
Expressing concern over increase in Hepatitis-B cases, Dr Shiv Sarin said, “Millions of people are suffering from the disease in our country and the number is increasing. The need of the hour is a strong campaign, similar to pulse polio and if we start giving vaccination to every child from tomorrow, then we can eradicate the disease by 2080.”
He said 90% of infants are infected with Hepatitis-B from their mothers and these patients couldn’t get rid of the disease anyway but can stay healthy by taking proper medicines. But, chances of curing Hepatitis-B caused by blood transfusion are 99 percent.
Dr Sarin also brought attention of participants towards the current scenario of liver transplant in India and said that there is demand of at least one lakh liver transplants every year but only 2000 of them are being done. He also emphasized on liver generation through bone marrow.
Finland-based Dr Maki M drew attention on increase in number of patients of Celiac disease and said that it has not been diagnosed properly in India. “Celiac is caused by an allergy of protein found in wheat and it affects small intestine. India has approximately five million people suffering from it who still remain undiagnosed because people are neither aware of it nor interested in finding the cause. Whereas Finland has been conducting research on it for decades,” he added.
The technical sessions were managed by Dr Sunil Jain and Dr Ajay Jain and over 100 research papers were presented.
India tops liver research, Big-B to endorse Hepatitis B campaign India has the only centre conducting research on Liver in the world and the New Delhi centre is accredited to World Health Organisation (WHO).
“Research on liver is running with pace and the government has been supporting well. To spread awareness about Hepatitis B, Bollywood star Amitabh Bachchan will endorse the campaign from November 23,” Dr Sarin said.
