Stakeholders meet to discuss Sickle Cell Disease as a National Health challenge

 


Sickle cell disease has remained highly prevalent in Nigeria.

According to the National Demographic survey 2018, 20% of children age 6-59 months have SCT (HbAS) and 2% have the haemoglobin C trait (HbAC).

To address this continued health challenge, a workshop aimed at engaging critical stakeholders which include patients, caregivers, health workers and policy makers and the media on the nature of sickle cell disease has been held.

The meeting was organized by the Sickle Pan Africa Research Consortium Nigeria Network (SPARC-NEt).

The essence of the meeting is also to ascertain the challenges that patient face in accessing care and the best way to provide the services to increase the number of patients.

Few simple evidence-based interventions have been shown to reduce the morbidity and mortality to SCD in developed countries. These, along with education of the patients and caregivers about SCD and what to do to maintain good health has been impactful in low-income settings.

Clinical care is available for patients with SCD in secondary and tertiary health care facilities in Nigeria but the majority of patients with SCD remain unreached in the communities.

It is proven that the curative therapy is bone marrow transplantation which though available in few centres in the country, is largely unaffordable by the majority of sufferers.

 

The barriers to access to care and client expectations for services to meet the needs of this patient population require appraisal.

SPARC-NEt led by Professor Obiageli E. Nnodu comprises 25 health care centres across the six geopolitical zones of the country with the hub at the Centre of Excellence for Sickle Cell Research and Training, University of Abuja (CESRTA).

SPARC-NEt belong to a larger consortium, Sickle Pan African Research Consortium (SPARCo) comprising six sub-Sahara countries: Ghana, Mali, Nigeria, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia/Zimbabwe with a Data Coordinating Centre in South Africa.

The main objectives of SPARCo are to expand the existing sickle cell registry which currently has over 13,000 patients, establish and implement a uniform multi-level standard of care for sub-Sahara Africa, strengthen existing skills and collaborative research in a sustainable manner.

COV

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