Bola Sobola

By: Bola Sobola

Those living with sickle cell anaemia disease are really going through severe crisis with unexplainable  pains as its regular reoccurrence has traumatized so many families that found themselves in the worrisome health condition.

Finding showed that the prevalence of the disease in Nigeria and Sub Saharan Africa is due to  lack of vivid  knowledge about the disease and societal disregard for medical caution on causes of sickle cell anaemia, which is ignorantly believed to  be spiritually foisted on people by an evil force either as punishment or inherited curses.

Nigeria among other Sub- Sahara Africans may find it difficult  to successfully reduce the prevalence of sickle cell anaemia in the society.  As some people still errorneously tie its occurrence to prehistoric mystical infection.

Kudos to medical findings which revealed that sickle cell anaemia has no connection with any African spiritual  mysticism but happens when two lovers with irregular and anomalous genotypes of an altered mutated HBB gene commonly causing sickle cell disease marry themselves, their child will have  sickle cell anaemia (SS) disease.

Experts explain that, the word - anaemia is a condition in which the blood does not have enough healthy red blood cells to nourish the body adequately and invariably leads to reduction of oxygen flow to all part of the body among other necessary organs thereby causing severe pain as well as crisis. So there are different types of anaemia itself, namely; Anaemia due to vitamin B12 deficiency, Anaemia due to folic acid deficiency, Anaemia due to Iron deficiency, Anaemia of chronic disease, Hemolytic anaemia, Idiopathic aplastic anaemia, megaloblastic Anaemia and pernicious anaemia.

According to World Health Organisation  ( WHO) sickle cell  disease is a severe hereditary form of anaemia in which a mutated form of hemoglobin distort  the red blood cells into a crescent or sickle like- shapes at low oxygen level. The cells die early, leaving a shortage of healthy red blood cells that can block blood flow causing pains and sickle cell crisis and more common among African descents.

Experts say there are several types of sickle cell anaemia disease people should know, namely; Sickle Cell Anaemia (SS), Sickle Cell Hemoglobin- C Disease (SC), Sickle Beta -  Plus Thalassemia (SB), Sickle Hemoglobin - D Disease and Sickle Hemoglobin - O Disease among others. Now the emphasis  is on Sickle Cell Anaemia (SS) which is when a child inherit one substitution beta globin genes from each parent who are AS and AS. Then the child has Sickle Cell Anaemia (SS) Disease

United States (US)Centers For Disease Control and Prevention disclosed that the alteration in the shape of red blood cells from the typical round and concave to rigid, sickle - like forms block flow of blood  causing a vaso- occlusive crisis where tissues are starved of oxygen. And this blockage is noted to be the reason for patients visiting hospital frequently so as to assuage the pains during crisis.

 Consequently, the hospital treatment can only help alleviate the pain but the condition cannot be cured. It only requires regular medical diagnosis and lab test as chronic can last for years or be life long. 

Another medical ways of reducing an acute pains is to carry out blood transfusions when necessary. This has helped patients who could afford the medical cost to increase the capacity of the oxygen in the body so as reduce their health complications.

Today, Sickles Cell Disease ( SCD) is not only  limited to African descent. It   is a global health issue with approximately 50 million people living with sickle cell disease in the world. And each year about 300,000 newly diagnosed sickle cell children are born worldwide with about 67 percent of 120 million people affected

The point is that, there are Five (5) distinct types of blood genotypes. They are - "AA", "AS", "AC" SS, and SC. Experts say the first two pairs "AA" and "AS" are normal. But "AC" is rare and the latter two - "SS" and "SC" are irregular and anomalous that are normally causing Sickle Cell Disease.

For example, genotype "AA" has normal hemoglobin from both parents and can marry any other types like "AS", "SS" and AC. But genotype "AS" though is also a normal hemoglobin -( but it carries sickle cell trait). So any person with "AS" should not marry other genotype except "AA"genotype. Because if "AS" marry  "AS" or any other irregular genotype, it will results to bearing children with Sickle Cell Disease (SCD)

 

Records indicate that, if Nigerian do not heed to medical precautions, the country  may be the home to about 2-4 million individuals with the disease, as close to 100,000 babies in Nigeria reportedly die from the related health disorder, making it the number one sickle-cell endemic country in Africa, as per 2015 statistics from the World Health Organisation (WHO)

The medical  advice for lots of people or  intending couple is to reduce the risk of having children with the disease by checking their genotype properly before embarking on the"Yes I do " journey. It is pitiful and painful to marry a partner premixed on  "love is blind" without  thinking of the future woes and unexplainable pain one's children will be subjected to in the cause of struggling to survive with avoidable health  discomfort all the  times.

Government at all levels should set up orientation platforms across hospital, create  special information desk in specialised MDAs and carry the campaign down to both secondary schools and tertiary institutions  where students and people will be regularly educated and  enlighten on sickle cell disease and how best to manage the  Anaemia. 

Although some professionals in Sub- Sahara Africans are seriously calling for public enlightenment and this reflected in a  Seminar  that featured African Health Ministers and Medical experts among others that urged governments at all levels particularly the health workers  to raise awareness on sickle cell anaemia in order to "bring the disease out of the shadows" and ensure the quality and healthy living of people across African continent.