New Delhi: Concerned over wide prevalence of liver diseases, President A P J Abdul Kalam today (Dec 11, 2004) said the country should adopt a programme of vaccinating all children for Hepatitis B and asked scientists to work towards making liver transplantation cost effective.

"In Taiwan the incidence of liver diseases used to be among 14 per cent of population during 1983. They took a decision to vaccinate every child in Taiwan with Hepatitis B vaccine. This has resulted in bringing down the incidence to 0.9 per cent by 2001," Kalam said in New Delhi inaugurating a five-day conference on liver sciences, organised by the Asian Pacific Association for the Study of Liver (APASL).

This showed the efficacy of this vaccine, he said adding India should also take such a decision since nearly five per cent of Indian population suffered from liver diseases.

As currently there was no vaccine against Hepatitis C and Hepatitis E, he asked scientists to mount a concerted cooperative international programme to make these vaccines available in the market within next three years.

Besides, Hepatitis A should be manufactured at an affordable cost.

Narrating case study of his friend who got his liver transplant done in UK, the President said the transplant surgery and the post operation medicines were prohibitively expensive.

Indian and Asian scientists must try to find out ways for making these cost effective. They should also work towards attaining 98 per cent success rate as is in the West and early diagnosis of liver diseases.