Summary There are almost 100,000 Thalassaemia patients in Pakistan, who require 1 million to 3 million litres of blood annually. Photo: OINN
(Dunya News) – For Rozina heading every day to look after children at the Thalassaemia Centre in Dalmia, Karachi is not just her job but something she personally relates to as a Thalassaemia patient herself.
The nurse who now tends to children coming in for blood transfusion at the centre once used to come in for the very same thing at the very same place. Owing to her competence, Rozina was hired as a nurse at the centre where she looks after young patients going through the same struggle as her.
Rozina was hired as a nurse at the centre where she looks after patients going through the same struggle as her. Photo: Dunya News
“Right from the start you are left dependent on someone,” she says. “I don’t want others to go through the same pain as I have, which is why please, please, spread awareness about this so that we can bring an end to this disease.”
While May 8 is marked globally as the World Thalassaemia Day with the aim of spreading awareness about the disease, in Pakistan there has been a dearth of serious measures to bring an end to it.
There are almost 100,000 Thalassaemia patients in Pakistan, who require 1 million to 3 million litres of blood annually. Unfortunately in Pakistan, nothing has been done for the prevention of this disease.
There are almost 100,000 Thalassaemia patients in Pakistan, who require 1 million to 3 million litres of blood annually. Photo: OINN
For the past two decades there hasn’t been a single child born with Thalassaemia major in England and Europe, says Iqbal Ahmed, president of Thalassaemia Federation of Pakistan’s Sindh chapter. “In Pakistan, however, we have had 5,000 to 6,000 such cases. This is the state’s responsibility,” says Ahmed. With the annual blood requirement for Thalassaemia patients going as high as 3 million litres, Ahmed says they are incapable of ensuring the provision of this amount of blood.
If a Thalassaemia minor man and a woman marry, they reproduce children with Thalassaemia major. While there has been legislation done to avoid this, the lack of implementation has created a serious situation.
For more on this, watch a report by Dunya News below.
