WB gets aid to fight liver diseases

KOLKATA: With terminal liver diseases on the rise, a group of city-based doctors and scientists, through the Liver Foundation, West Bengal, are striving to set up a state-of-the-art hospital dedicated to liver diseases but one that will predominantly cater to the rural poor.

The vision of Liver Foundation, West Bengal, a non-profit organisation, is to visit villages, where liver diseases are rampant, to create awareness about Hepatitis B and related ailments so that unsuspecting folks do not fall prey to unscrupulous medical practitioners.

Such door-to-door campaigns in villages are also being used to refer complicated cases to specialists in Kolkata.

Set up one-and-a-half years ago, the foundation is undertaking an awareness programme in six districts. It has also received a staggered grant of over Rs1 crore from global pharmaceutical company Bristol Myers Squibb to spread awareness in Birbhum in particular, where liver diseases are rampant, Dr Kalyan Bose, vice-president of the foundation, told DNA.

According to Dr Ashokananda Konar, president of Liver Foundation, “India has a Hepatitis B carrier pool of 30 million people and Hepatitis C pool of 10 million. Some of them will progress to cirrhosis, liver failure and cancer.”

Currently, an estimated 3-4% of the Indian population are Hepatitis B virus carriers. In West Bengal, according to recent medical estimates, 80% of those afflicted with Hepatitis B recovered while 10-15% became carriers and the balance percentage can fall prey to cirrhosis and cancer. 

m_madhumita@dnaindia.net