Sagnik Nag, Amity University, Kolkata
World Sickle Cell Awareness Day is celebrated on June 19 every year to heighten awareness about the genetic disorder Sickle Cell Disease (SCD). The disease is naturally found in people from all over Africa, Southern America, Central America, Saudi Arabia, India, Northern Turkey, and in a few pockets of Italy. The day enables more and more people to comprehend the situation and encourages organizations to contribute towards amassing funds for impoverished patients and spread awareness about the condition.
Importance of World Sickle Cell Awareness Day:
SCD is a major public health problem and it is essential to stimulate everyone to discern the purpose of World Sickle Cell Awareness Day, which is to raise awareness about SCD and to assist sickle cell patients. The 19th of June is observed as World Sickle Cell Awareness Day and this year the Sickle Cell Society is commemorating 40 years of functioning within the SCD community. World Sickle Cell Awareness Day is a United Nations recognized day to increase the perception of sickle cell disease at a national and international level. In India, the disorder principally exists in eastern Gujarat, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, the western part of Odisha, and cavities of the Nilgiri Hills in northern Tamil Nadu and Kerala. Establishing awareness can stimulate access to education, supervision, surveillance, and medication for sickle cell anemia.
What is sickle cell disease/anemia?
Overtime patients suffering from sickle cell disease can encounter damage to organs such as the liver, kidney, lungs, heart, and spleen. Casualty can also result from complications with the ailment. Treatment of sickle cell mostly concentrates on staving off and treating complications. Sickle cell ailments are a group of illnesses that involve our red blood cells. It is an umbrella phrase bestowed to blood disorders typically inherited from a person’s parents. The most widespread type is recognized as sickle cell anemia (SCA). It results in an irregularity in the oxygen-carrying protein hemoglobin predominantly found in red blood cells.
A group of ailments that inflict red blood cells to become deformed and break down. With sickle cell disease, an inherited condition, red blood cells (RBCs) contort into a sickle pattern. The cells die early, leaving a scarcity of healthy red blood cells (sickle cell anemia) and can obstruct blood flow resulting in pain (sickle cell crisis). Indications of sickle cell diseases will start showing from around 5 to 6 months of age, and along with the pain, an individual can also undergo anemia, swelling in the hands and feet, bacterial infections, blindness, bone defect, and stroke. Therapies comprise of medication, blood transfusions, and infrequently bone-marrow transplantation. People suffering from sickle cell disease are also at threat of complications such as stroke, acute chest syndrome, and priapism.
Conclusion:
Since 2008, the World Sickle Cell Awareness Day has been marked annually to assist increase general knowledge and lift awareness about the disease and therefore the struggles that patients and their families undergo. The day also highlights the treatment, whether surgical or medicinal, that’s available for the patient that’s affected by sickle cell disease. SCD may be a health burden which not only impacts the individual’s life cycle but also impacts the economy also. there’s a requirement to require efforts so that the subsequent generation is free from the disease. Also, as we celebrate the achievements of Society, we’d like your help to make sure we will still make a positive difference to people suffering from sickle cell disease over the next 40 years.
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References: World Sickle Cell Day- Sickle Cell Society – https://www.sicklecellsociety.org/wscd/
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