More than 2.2 million people in the NWFP and Fata have been infected with hepatitis B and C. This was revealed at an awareness seminar held here on Monday to mark the World Hepatitis Day. Dr Ihsanullah Turabi, provincial coordinator of the hepatitis control programme, while speaking on the occasion urged preventive measures against the deadly disease, saying that more than 700,000 people in NWFP and 124,000 in Fata suffered from hepatitis B. "In Frontier, an estimated 1.1778 million people while in Fata about 0.19 million had hepatitis C,' he added. He revealed that 22.7 per cent population in Mardan, 5.3pc in Swabi, 17.8pc in Swat, 6.1pc in Kohat, 13.5pc in Orakzai Agency and 0.4pc in Kurrum Agency had hepatitis C. He said 6.53 per cent in Mardan, 2.96pc in Swabi, 8.7pc in Swat, 3.8pc in Kohat, 0.2pc in Orakzai Agency and 2.25pc in Kurram Agency were afflicted by hepatitis B. Under the programme, he said 22 sentinel sites had been established in the province besides provision of free treatment to 340, and 3,025 hepatitis B and C patients respectively. To prevent spread of the ailment, he informed the participants, 9,276 health workers and 9270 prisoners had been vaccinated apart from installation of water purification plants in nine hospitals besides putting in place waste management systems in four hospitals. The system is being installed in three more hospitals of the province, he said. "Treatment of the disease is expensive and time-consuming and the only way out is the proper sensitisation of the society regarding its causative agents', he said and added that Pakistan had an estimated 13.5 million people infected either with hepatitis B or C or both. Director public health Dr Fazle Qayyum said that hepatitis B and C were burden on health budget as its diagnosis and treatment was too much expensive. He added that reliable treatment of the disease was not available and it could be controlled only through preventive measures. According to him, the public health engineering department and local government should take effective steps for sanitation and supply of clean drinking water to the people to put brakes on the prevalence of hepatitis A and E. Deputy director public health Dr Muhammad Zaheen spoke on the causes of hepatitis B and C and said that the viral infection was caused by unsafe sexual relations, use of contaminated syringes and surgical instruments. He went on to say that unsafe practices in beauty parlors, transfusion of unscreened blood, piercing and use of the contaminated hair in tooth brush could transmit the disease. Similarly, he said the disease could also be transmitted from the infected mother to the newborn baby. He said that through vaccination, 9 out of 10 patients could be saved. "If vaccination is not carried out, 9 out of 10 patients could become carriers of the disease while mortality rate in such patients is one in four', he remarked. He advised blood screening of pregnant mothers to stop transmission of hepatitis B and C to the newborn babies. Immunisation of the newborn within 12 hours can prevent transmission of hepatitis to him, he said. "More than 385 million people are thought to be suffering from hepatitis B and another 200 million from C globally and every year four million people entered the hepatitis club. One million died of it annually', he added.