Sickle cell disease remains a major public health challenge in Uganda
Sickle cell disease remains a significant public health crisis in Uganda, affecting nearly 20,000 newborns annually. The country is scaling up mandatory newborn screening and treatment programs to improve survival rates and manage symptoms.
Why it matters
Early diagnosis and consistent medication access are critical for managing genetic blood disorders in developing nations where mortality rates for children remain high.
Sickle cell disease remains a major public health challenge in Uganda with nearly 20,000 newborns affected every year.
The inherited blood disorder causes severe pain in patients, and many children in Africa with the disease die before their fifth birthday due to late diagnosis.
However, access to care is beginning to change this, while scientific breakthroughs are also bringing hope for a permanent cure.
It has been a gruelling twelve-year journey to a sickle cell clinic in Kayunga for Irene Nalukwago, whose daughter was born healthy at the hospital, east of the capital, Kampala.
But at six months old she started falling sick and becoming anaemic. Nalukwago said they started giving her daughter transfusions almost every week, but she was in a lot of pain.
It was then that doctors began to suspect a deeper problem.
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