Sickle cell disease is an inherited disease. The east coast, southern and lake regions are more affected.
SCD affects millions of people throughout the world. Approximately 300,000 children are born with SCD worldwide, each year. With inadequate diagnostic facilities, support and proper treatment, 50-90 per cent of children may die from the disease in their childhood. SCD contributes to 6.4 per cent of under-five mortality in Africa
Sickle cell disease (SCD) is a group of blood disorders typically inherited from a person's parents. The most common type is known as sickle cell anaemia (SCA). It results in an abnormality in the oxygen-carrying protein haemoglobin found in red blood cells. This leads to a rigid, sickle-like shape under certain circumstances. Problems in sickle cell disease typically begin around 5 to 6 months of age. A number of health problems may develop, such as attacks of pain ( sickle cell crisis ), anemia, swelling in the hands and feet, bacterial infections and stroke. Long-term pain may develop as people get older. The average life expectancy in the developed world is 40 to 60 years.
Sickle cell disease occurs when a person inherits two abnormal copies of the β-globin gene that makes haemoglobin, one from each parent. An attack can be set off by temperature changes, stress, dehydration, and high altitude. A person with a single abnormal copy does not usually have symptoms and is said to have sickle cell trait. Such people are also referred to as carriers. Diagnosis is by a blood test, and some countries test all babies at birth for the disease. Diagnosis is also possible during pregnancy.[4]
The care of people with sickle cell disease may include infection prevention with vaccination and antibiotics, high fluid intake, folic acid supplementation, and pain medication. Other measures may include blood transfusion and the medication hydroxycarbamide (hydroxyurea). A small percentage of people can be cured by a transplant of bone marrow cells.
As of 2015, about 4.4 million people have sickle cell disease, while an additional 43 million have sickle cell trait. About 80 per cent of sickle cell disease cases are believed to occur in sub-Saharan Africa. It also occurs relatively frequently in parts of India, the Arabian Peninsula, and among people of African origin living in other parts of the world. 2015, it resulted in about 114,800 deaths.
On this backdrop, we acknowledged integration of SCD interventions into the National NCD Strategy and, incorporation of essential medicines for SC patients.
establishment of SCD interventions in countries. He said, countries with annual SCD infant birth rate of above 0.5 per 1,000 are required to
The Ministry of health should address SCD challenges such as access and affordability for SCD services because some patients are not capable of enrolling in Health Insurance schemes while others also lack fare to and back from the designated Sickle cell clinics.
Establishing national programmes for the management and prevention of SCD is crucial in this case asTanzania having an infant birth rate of 6 per 1,000 per year, the top four in the world would benefit having a national programme extremely essential.
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