Since 2015, approximately half a million people have contracted the Hepatitis C virus in Pakistan each year. Presently, Pakistan has 10 million cases in total.
Dr. Homie Razavi, a leading epidemiologist at the Center for Disease Analysis (CDA) in the United States, revealed the above during a news briefing in Karachi on Thursday.
He revealed that Pakistan now has the largest number of Hepatitis-C patients in the world, surpassing India, China, and Nigeria. CDA has been collaborating with different provincial health departments in Pakistan for two years, conducting extensive research and analysis.
From 2015 to 2021, Pakistan has seen an average of half a million Hepatitis-C infections per year.
Experts from the USA and Pakistan have confirmed that over 15 million people in Pakistan are suffering from Hepatitis B and C. This makes them the most fatal of all communicable diseases.
Dr. Razavi stated that Pakistan can learn from Egypt, which was fourth in the highest number of Hepatitis C cases list in 2015. However, it is now number 17. This was made achievable because Egypt launched a national program to screen all its citizens and treat those who are infected.
