Health Awareness: 100,000 sickle cell patients born in Nigeria yearly — UITH

A retired Consultant haematologist with the University of Ilorin Teaching Hospital, Prof. Banji Adewuyi, and a consultant paediatrician, Dr. Olaosebikan Rasaq, have raised the alarm that

Nigeria has the highest number of sickle cell patients in the world.

Speaking with journalists during the World Sickle Cell Day and inauguration of Ilorin Sickle Cell Support Club on Tuesday, they advocated concerted efforts to address it.

Adewuyi urged the Federal Government to recognise the prevalence of the disease, calling for public education about it.

“Nigeria has the highest number of sickle cell patients in the world, as one to two per cent of children are born with sickle cell disease. That means that there could be between 80,000 and 100,000 new sickle cell patients born every year in this country.

“At any given time, there may be up to 1 million or 1.5 million sickle cell patients in Nigeria. Because of our large populations, that is the largest for any country in the world.”

He advocated the need to recognise sickle cell as a problem and urged the creation of units, hospitals and apparatus to tackle it.

Rasaq said out of 250,000 children that are born annually with sickle cell disease worldwide, 100,000 are Nigerians.

He said the figure shows that Nigeria constitutes 40 per cent of the burden of sickle cell every year.

He said that since it is a preventable disease, policy makers should enact a legislation making it compulsory for everybody to undergo genotype tests before marriage.

“It is through genotype that one will know whether s/he is a sufferer or not; and whether a person is carrying the gene or not,” Rasaq said.

He also advocated neonatal screening, to enable the authorities know those that have the sickle cell traits, “because when we pick the disease early, it is very easy to have a good outcome later in life.”

Rasaq disclosed that he had been managing sickle cell for the past 15 years and thought that patients could come together to have a support club, which would be a mouthpiece for them and help the young ones to become aware of the disease.

-Punch

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