WHAT IS HEPNET?

Liver and Gastrointestinal diseases are very common in Pakistan. Pakistan has the second highest prevalence of hepatitis C in the world, up to 5 percent. These diseases result in considerable mortality and morbidity along with adverse impact on the quality of life of our population.

Challenges include lack of trained manpower, poor quality epidemiological data and local research, lack of a coherent strategy for addressing these issues in the private and public sector and poor coordination between various organizations addressing these challenges resulting in duplication of efforts and wastage of resources.

There are several physicians’ societies in the field of Gastroenterology and Hepatology in Pakistan that are working towards addressing these issues. Their activities include creating opportunities for Continuing Medical Education for their members, providing forums for professional development and patient advocacy. However these are larger organizations whose main focus is larger meetings. There is also a lack of coordination and cooperation amongst all these bodies resulting in redundancy of efforts and sub-optimal use of resources.

There is a need for having smaller coalitions of physicians in the field of Hepatology that can drive more consistent efforts to tackle the massive problem of Liver disease in Pakistan.