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<\/strong> Sickle cell anaemia He said two percent of all newborn babies in the country also have the sickle cell condition, which is caused by the inheritance of two abnormal haemoglobins.<\/p>\n The event, celebrated worldwide, was to create awareness of sickle cell disease and appeal to the public to know their status, while calling for stigmatisation of the disease to end.<\/p>\n Educating the public in a 45 minutes lecture, Prof G.A Ankrah-Badu said the presence of the abnormal state causes among other things, a sluggish flow of blood and its attendant effects.<\/p>\n He further added that sickle cell patients deal with a lot of physical and mental challenges, ‘but stigmatisation has the greatest effect on them, and I therefore appeal to the public to stop stigmatising sickle cell patients.’<\/p>\n According to him, polygamy served as a contributory factor to the spread of sickle cell disease and so encouraged the public to know their prospective partners’ status before tying the knot.<\/p>\n ‘Failure to do so could result in the couple giving birth to children with the disease,’ he said.<\/p>\n Professor Ankrah-Badu also urged sickle cell patients to be cautious of excessive alcohol intake, excessive stress, acidosis, dehydration and infections, which could arouse the reactions of the disease.<\/p>\n He finally sought the help of the Ministry of Health (MoH) to provide the sickle cell sector with more doctors to provide services to the affected patients.<\/p>\n The Chief Director of MoH, Madam Salamata Abdul-Salam, said, ‘Millions of people are dying from this disease due to the ignorance. I would encourage the health sector and the media to continue informing the public about the canker.<\/p>\n ‘The health sector can assist to manage the disease and provide help for patients,’ she assured.<\/p>\n The GICG is planning to collaborate with the Ghana health sector, NGOs and other stakeholders to join hands and tackle the disease.<\/p>\n By Rita Oduro<\/strong>
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Sickle cell anaemia A quarter of all newborn babies in the country are carriers of the sickle cell disease, Professor George A. Ankrah-Badu at the Ghana Institute for Clinical Genetics (GICG), has…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-200981","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200981","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=200981"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200981\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=200981"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=200981"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=200981"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
A quarter of all newborn babies in the country are carriers of the sickle cell disease, Professor George A. Ankrah-Badu at the Ghana Institute for Clinical Genetics (GICG), has disclosed at the celebration of the World this year’s Sickle Cell Day in Accra.<\/p>\n
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