‘How Nigeria Can Tackle Sickle Cell Disorder’

Nigeria can greatly reduce its Sickle Cell prevalence with increased public enlightenment, a minister’s aide, Dr. Olukayode Oyeleye said at a forum on the ailment, Tuesday, in Lagos.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) ranks Nigeria as the country with the highest number of Sickle Cell anaemia sufferers in the world, recording at least 150,000 sickle cell births yearly – a prevalence rate of 20 per 1,000 births.

Oyeleye, Special Assistant on Media to the Agric Minister, said this negative ranking can be reversed by educating more people on how to prevent the avoidable ailment.

“We need to better sensitise the public on the ills of the disorder because it is preventable. It is better for us to be informed than remain wilfully ignorant,” advised Oyeleye.

According to a WHO report, “With the carrier frequency ranging between 20 per cent and 30 per cent of Nigeria’s population, it means that more than 30 million Nigerians are carriers.”

Oyeleye was speaking at the forum organised by the Genotype Foundation, in collaboration with the Dabma Sickle Cell Foundation and the Health Writers Association of Nigeria.

He also reviewed a book entitled: Sickle Cell Disorder: Early Warning Signals, written by Pastor Emmanuel Dickson Ibekwe, Chairman, Board of Trustees of the Dabma Sickle Cell Foundation. Oyeleye urged the public to “take advantage of the disclosures” in the sickle cell manual.

In a message to the gathering, the Minister of Health, Prof. Onyebuchi Chukwu, expressed the federal government’s readiness to collaborate with NGOs and other stakeholders in reducing the sickle cell disorder to the barest minimum in the country.

The Federal Ministry of Health, Prof. Chukwu said, was already stepping up measures to tackle the ailment. Part of it, he disclosed, is the setting up of four special sickle cell care centres in Ebute Metta, Abakaliki, Keffi and Gombe, with two more planned for the remaining geo-political zones.

—Tokunbo Olajide