About 200 Sickle Cell warriors have been enrolled to benefit from the free healthcare services of Ebonyi State Government, through the State Health Insurance Scheme, as part of activities to mark the 2024 World Sickle Cell Day.
Health experts say, Sickle Cell anaemia is contracted by partners who are not genetically compatible for biological reproduction, and is equally a group of disorders that cause red blood cells to become misshapen and break down.
Sickle cell disease is a lifelong illness, according to a medical journal. It is a group of inherited red blood cell disorders that affect Hemoglobin, the protein that carries oxygen through the body.
Health researches show that in sickle cell disease, the red blood cells become crescent- or “sickle”-shaped due to a genetic mutation.
These sickled red blood cells are said not to bend or move easily and can block blood flow to the rest of the body, which results in serious problems, including stroke, eye problems, infections, and episodes of pain, called pain crises.
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The financial burden of managing Sickle Cell disease patients which was until recently, only by a bone marrow transplant, was said to be demanding.
A 200 level university student, Favour Nwankwo and Nnenna Ogbuinya, are among some Sickle Cell warriors who are beneficiaries of the Ebonyi State Government’s free healthcare services of 2023. They readily share their challenges of life before the intervention by the Ebonyi State Government through the free health care services.
In December 2023, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved two new therapies to treat the disease, with one approach adding a gene to the body, while the other, makes changes to a gene that is already in the body.
Medical records show that in 2023, a total of 100 Sickle Cell patients were enrolled by the Office of the Wife of the Ebonyi State Governor into the State Health Insurance Scheme for free medical services, while another 200 were enrolled on Tuesday, June 25.
Officials of the Ebonyi State Government revealed that 34 patients out of the 100 persons enrolled on the State’s free medical services last year, have been successfully managed medically and surgically upto tertiary health care levels, noting that the initiative for the enrollment of another 200 Sickle Cell warriors are efforts geared towards empowering and providing resources and psychological support to the people.
(Editor: Terverr Tyav)
