20m infected with Hepatitis B virus a year

At least 20 million Hepatitis B Virus (HBV), 2.0 million Hepatitis C Virus (HCV) and 0.26 million HIV new infections are associated with unsafe use of injections every year across the world, experts quoting a WHO report said yesterday.
They also warned that South East Asia is a red zone of unsafe use of injections, saying that half of the total use of injections in the world is unsafe.
Experts said this yesterday at a seminar on 'Injection use and risk of HBV, HCV and HIV infection: Intervention for risk reduction' at the British Council auditorium in the city.
The seminar was jointly organised by Department of Clinical Pharmacy and Pharmacology of Dhaka University, Centre for Social Science Research in Health and Medicine, School of Pharmacy, University of Nottingham, UK and British Council.
After conducting a WHO-funded pilot project on 'Intervention can reduce the unsafe use', Prof AK Azad Chowdhury in a paper said, “The outcome of the pilot project is good. Unsafe use of injections can be reduced by intervention.”
He said by monitoring, training and proper planning, the use of injection can be reduced.
Under the project, the teams will monitor the use of injections in upazila health complexes and train the staffs for not using injections and then plan accordingly to work for intervention to stop using injections.
DU Vice Chancellor Prof SMA Faiz was present as the chief guest at the seminar with Prof AK Azad in the chair.
Director General of Health Prof Md Abul Faiz, Prof ABM Faroque of Department of Pharmaceutical Technology and Prof Dr Munirddin Ahmed and Prof Saiful Islam of Clinical Pharmacy and Pharmacology Department also spoke.