Pabbi, Peshawar: The hepatitis headquarters

There is no way one can tell when will Senior Minister Bashir Ahmed Bilour’s promise of new pipelines into the streets of the metropolis Peshawar will start supplying fresh water and rid us of the germ and rust infested water we are drinking. The minister has just made an announcement of intention by the government. When will the plan be approved, when will estimates be made and okayed, funds released, tenders called, work order issued and the actual work on the ground start, when will the whole work be completed. There are a lot of ifs and buts to be crossed and a lot of years to wait before the people of Peshawar take a sip from the water supplied by these new pipelines which have only been announced by the senior minister. In the meanwhile, the city of Peshawar and probably Pabbi, Nowshera and Khyber Agency seem to be emerging as the hepatitis headquarters of the province, The disease may become a full blown endemic in these areas as we wait for such time when the new pipelines are ready to supply fresh and uncontaminated water. Till then all of us should prey that somehow, it does not cause our deaths. The senior minister is not an ignorant man and knows that a sick population not only increases financial burden of the government in health expenditure and stretches thin the ability of the health services to cater to so many sick individuals, it also takes off many workers from the job force and adds to the poverty of the already poor. A free camp for diagnosing hepatitis in Peshawar found out that 14.20 percent individual out of the people they examined had this deadly and fast spreading hepatitis. That is not to say that contaminated water causes only this ailment. It can cause a number of illnesses from skin rashes, itches, stomach disorder, constant headache, aching joints and blindness. You name it and contaminated water has the ability to cause that disease. It is a matter of with what is the water contaminated. The ratio of hepatitis in the rest of the country is about 8 percent which means that in Peshawar and the nearby areas the rate of people getting this disease is just a tad less than double. And this is not the first time that there have been published statistics which revealed that this disease was fast spreading in this area. Doctors report that by the number of patients they are diagnosing, the next most affected area might be Pabbi and the surrounding villages like Dagbisood, Mohibbanda, Khudrizo, and many other villages on the way from Peshawar to Nowshera. The reason is said to be that because the area of Pabbi is in a depression and like the bottom of bowel water flows into it from the surrounding areas. This has raised the water level there and with it many chemicals under the ground and harmful for human health have dissolved in the water. In Peshawar however, it is not the underground water level but rather the rusty, leaky old pipelines which are supplying mixture of fresh and sewerage which is causing all these diseases, the most deadly and costly to treat of course is hepatitis. In Khyber agency which borders Peshawar city, the conditions of sanitation and supply of fresh water is not different rather worse and if data is collected it would show as much worse results There is a move in the government circles to provide free treatment right away to individuals diagnosed with this ailment. The number of such individuals can run into millions just in Peshawar and the surrounding areas and it would cost billions of rupees if the government really carries out its intentions. However, the fact is that had this money been spent on time in providing fresh and clean water to the citizens, this sickness and many others would not have even existed and the currently stationed doctors would have been looking after the patients with normal ailments which are present in any population. Still one would wish that the government wakes up to the magnitude of the issue and starts an awareness campaign among the international community and ask for help in this regard. It is not a job which a provincial government can do alone. Both the cure of hepatitis and laying fresh water pipelines in the whole city.