15,000 babies born with sickle cell disease annually
Current statistics show that the prevalence rate for Sickle Cell Disease in Ghana is about 25 per cent and an estimated two per cent of births, amounting to approximately 15,000 babies are born with the disease annually.
Advertisement
The World Health Organisation estimates that five per cent of the world’s population have the trait and over 300,000 babies are born annually with haemoglobinopathies (mostly Sickle Cell Disease and thalassemia).
Dr Sefakor Enam Bankas, a doctor who has been living with Sickle Cell herself, in an interview with The Mirror, noted that blood plays an important role in the management of Sickle Cell Disease.
“It is useful in treating acute and chronic Sickle Cell related conditions such as severe anaemia due to aplastic crisis and kidney failure, respectively and managing severe complications of Sickle Cell Disease.”
Dr Bankas, who is the founder of Sickle Life, a Sickle Cell advocacy group that seeks to educate people on the diseases will on Saturday, June 18, 2016 organise a blood donation exercise and a free Sickle Cell testing at the Korle Bu Southern Area Blood Bank.
The donation is to commemorate the World Sickle Cell Awareness Day which falls on June 19.
Sickle Cell Awareness
Since 2008, the World Sickle Cell Awareness Day has been held annually in order to help increase public knowledge and raise awareness of the disease and the struggles sufferers and their families go through.
The date was chosen to commemorate the day on which a resolution was officially adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations, recognising the disease as a public health concern.
Sickle Cell affects millions of people around the world including adults and children.
It is a potentially fatal disease and, according to the WHO, is one of the main causes of premature death amongst children under the age of five in various African countries.