The Senate has passed a bill seeking to control and manage sickle cell anaemia, a genetically inherited disease in Nigeria. The passage of the bill followed the consideration of a report by the Committee on Health (Secondary and Tertiary) led by Senator representing Kwara central, Yahaya Oloriegbe. Presenting his Committee report, the lawmaker explained that sickle cell anaemia is an inherited disorder of Haemoglobin (SS) from either or both parents of a child affecting nearly 100 million people globally. According to the lawmaker, Nigeria ranks 1st in the world as the sickle cell endemic country and was declared by the World Health Organisation (WHO) in 2006 as the capital of sickle cell disease in the world. “The bill will strengthen the existing structure, encourage and strengthen support groups and other groups to be able to assess the effectiveness or otherwise of the control strategies in place to eliminate sickle cell disease,” he added.

Source: Nigerian Tribune September 21, 2021 18:33 UTC