According to Riyadh Health Affairs, over the first half of the past year (1439H.), King Khaled Hospital- Al-Kharj served 147,443 patients at the outpatient clinics and 91,479 at the emergency department.
The Affairs pointed out that the hospital handled 5,805 surgical emergencies and injuries as well as 75 traffic casualties. Surgery Departments also conducted 1,290 minor and major surgical operations and 657 one-day surgeries. The hospital conducted 514,406 lab and x-ray examinations including 489,317 lab tests and 25,089 x-rays during the said period.
On the other hand, the Ministry of Health (MOH) has recently announced the commencement of the execution of the second phase of the National Program for Hepatitis C virus (HCV) Detection and Treatment. Furthermore, MOH has launched an awareness campaign entitled (Give your Hand), which features several awareness materials posted on the social media.
During the past two years, MOH has provided a number of quality drugs to treat HCV, while giving priority to sophisticated cases or those transmitting infections to other. The introduction of locally produced world-class drugs has helped expand the scope of treatment in an unprecedented way; thus, removing priority barriers. In addition, the Program provides training to both doctors and coordinators, as well as lab and radiology tests, and the logistics services needed for its implementation, it added.
It is noteworthy that Hepatitis C virus (HCV) causes both acute and chronic infection. Acute HCV infection is usually asymptomatic. About 15–30% of infected persons spontaneously clear the virus. The remaining persons will develop chronic HCV infection, which may lead to cirrhosis or liver cancer in some cases.
HCV chronic infections can be cured using new direct-acting antiviral medicines recently made available, which have proven effective with more than 95% recovery rate. However, there is no vaccine for Hepatitis C.