Why is sickle cell anemia common in Nigeria?
Why is sickle cell anemia common in Nigeria?
“The disease is prevalent among the poor due to illiteracy and poor awareness campaigns by the government.
What percentage of Nigerians have sickle cell trait?
Nigeria has a population of 112 million with an annual growth rate of 3.2%. About 25% of adults throughout the country have the sickle cell trait, AS, while the Hb C trait is largely confined to the Yoruba people of southwestern Nigeria in whom it occurs in about 6%.
Where did sickle cell disease originate?
SCD originated in West Africa, where it has the highest prevalence. It is also present to a lesser extent in India and the Mediterranean region. DNA polymorphism of the beta S gene suggests that it arose from five separate mutations: four in Africa and one in India and the Middle East.
How many people have sickle cell anemia in Nigeria?
Over 150,000 children are born with SCD in Nigeria each year and about 40 million people suffer total. The problems occurring due to SCD can severely interfere with education, work, psychosocial development, and basic survival. In most severe forms of the disease, children die before the age of five.
Why did sickle cell disease become so prevalent in certain East African populations?
Malaria is prevalent in the lowlands of East Africa, and so the sickle cell allele became common because it provided protection against malaria. As a result, sickle cell disease (individuals homozygous for the sickle cell allele) also became common.
Is hydroxyurea available in Nigeria?
Hydroxyurea is grossly under prescribed in Nigeria, despite that the vast majority of physicians who attend patients with sickle cell disease know about its clinical efficacy.
Where in Africa is sickle cell anemia most common?
Nearly 90 percent of the world’s SCD population lives in three countries: Nigeria, India, and the Democratic Republic of Congo (figure 1), where the disease affects up to 2 percent of the population, and the carrier prevalence rate (sickle cell trait) is as high as 10 to 30 percent [3,4,9,10].
Why is sickle cell prevalence in Africa?
Sickle cell disease occurs more often among people from parts of the world where malaria is or was common. It is believed that people who carry the sickle cell trait are less likely to have severe forms of malaria.
When did sickle cell start?
Sickle cell disease (SCD) was first described in 1910, in a dental student who presented with pulmonary symptoms (1). Herrick coined the term “sickle-shaped” to describe the peculiar appearance of the rbc of this patient (Figure
Who first discovered sickle cell disease?
What we call its “discovery” in 1910 occurred, not in Africa, but in the United States. A young man named Walter Clement Noel from the island of Grenada, a dental student studying in Chicago, went to Dr. James B. Herrick with complaints of pain episodes, and symptoms of anemia.
Why is sickle cell disease more common in Africa?
The reason why so many black people have sickle cell, is that having the trait (so only one copy of the mutated allele) makes people more resistant to malaria. Malaria is a huge problem is sub-saharan Africa.
Why did sickle cell anemia originate in West Africa?
Scientists believe the sickle cell gene appeared and disappeared in the population several times, but became permanently established after a particularly vicious form of malaria jumped from animals to humans in Asia, the Middle East, and Africa.
