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Who is
Affected?
In the United States people are often
surprised when they learn that a person who is not African American has
sickle cell disease. The disease originated in at least 4 places in Africa
and in the Indian/Saudi Arabian subcontinent. It exists in all countries of
Africa and in areas where Africans have migrated. |
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into the
Americas and the Caribbean. However, sickle cell disease had already spread
from Africa to Southern Europe by the time of the slave trade, so it is
present in Portuguese, Spaniards, French Corsicans, Sardinians, Sicilians,
mainland Italians, Greeks, Turks and Cypriots. Sickle cell disease appears
in most of the Near and Middle East countries including Lebanon, Israel,
Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Yemen. |
| It is
most common in West and Central Africa where as many as 25% of the people
have sickle cell trait and 1-2% of all babies are born with a form of the
disease. In the United States with an estimated population of over 270
million, about 1,000 babies are born with sickle cell disease each year. In
contrast, Nigeria, with an estimated 1997 population of 90 million,
45,000-90,000 babies with sickle cell disease are born each year.
The transatlantic slave trade was largely
responsible for introducing the sickle cell gene |
The
condition has also been reported in India and Sri Lanka. Sickle cell disease
is an international health problem and truly a global challenge.
All these countries must work together to
solve the problem and find effective treatments and ultimately a cure. The
knowledge and expertise in the management of sickle cell disease acquired in
the technologically advanced countries must be shared with the less
developed countries where patients die at alarming rates. |