Haryana Town Hit by Hepatitis-C

Chandigarh : Authorities in Haryana have rushed doctors and medicines to Ratia town in Fatehabad district following the outbreak of Heptitis-C disease in the past fortnight.

Hundreds of people have been affected by the disease in and around Ratia town, 280 km from here.

"A 24-member team of doctors from the Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences (PGIMS) has been sent to Ratia to identify those affected by Hepatitis-C and look into the reasons for its spread," PGIMS associate professor of community medicine Ramesh Verma said.

He said a team of doctors which visited Ratia last week collected 3,800 samples. Of these 1,064 were found positive.

He said that reasons for spread of the disease could be multiple use of needles, transfusion of infected blood, carelessness in treatment of teeth and use of infected razor and unsafe sexual relations.