PGI to hold free screening for Hepatitis B & C patients today

Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, April 18

The PGI will hold a free screening for Hepatitis B and C patients on the occasion of World Liver Day at the liver clinic on the fourth floor of the new OPD here on Friday.

“It is essential to maintain body weight by doing exercise regularly and having a balanced and healthy diet (less sugar and more of proteins and fibres). This is a major intervention for maintaining a healthy body and a healthy liver. Also vaccinate yourself against Hepatitis B,” said Prof RK Dhiman, HoD, Hepatology.

According to doctors here, liver disease doesn’t usually cause any obvious signs or symptoms until it is fairly advanced and the liver is damaged. At this stage, possible symptoms could be loss of appetite, weight loss, jaundice, ascites (fluid accumulation in abdomen) and altered consciousness. The most common causes of chronic liver diseases in this part of India include alcoholic liver disease, viral hepatitis B and C, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), metabolic liver diseases, etc. Acute liver diseases are usually caused by viral hepatitis A, B and E. In some patients, it may cause acute liver failure, which is a life-threatening condition. — TNS

THINGS YOU MUST DO   

• Maintain a healthy body weight
• Exercise regularly and have an active lifestyle
• Drink coffee and green tea
• Get vaccinated against hepatitis B
• Drink safe water
• Have a balanced & healthy diet (Less sugars and more of proteins, fibres

THINGS YOU MUSTN’T

• Have excess alcohol n Eat junk food
• Use unsafe injections, blood transfusion and haemodialysis
• Tattooing in unregulated settings
• Unprotected sex/multiple partners
• Use of illicit drugs, including heroin