Frustrated over the failure of the Rs 2.5 billion National Programme for the Control and Prevention of Hepatitis (NPCPH) to deliver the goods in the last three years, the Health Ministry bosses and experts are now busy re-designing the current strategy to fight the viral disease whose sufferers are around 15 million in Pakistan. In August 2005, the ministry had launched the five-year NPCPH to contain growing cases of hepatitis, especially hepatitis C, in the country and provide patients with inexpensive treatment. The targets, however, turned out to be too big for the NPCPH managers to achieve in the days ahead as neither the hepatitis burden could be lessened nor did its sufferers get the promised relief in most parts of the country. The number of hepatitis C patients in the country increased to whopping 10 million and that of hepatitis B to five million over the last three years. The situation triggered alarming bells for the ministry, which ordered a