BUSINESS DAY
Nigerians in the diaspora are increasingly joining the domestic scramble to secure life-saving bone marrow transplants for sickle cell disease.
About 36 Nigerians living abroad and 127 within the country are competing for a place on the eligibility list for the new bone marrow transplant programme led by the Sickle Cell Foundation (SCFN) and the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH), according to the SCFN.
The programme, open to patients aged 5 to 55 suffering from severe sickle cell disease, offers a cure by replacing diseased blood cells with healthy cells from matching donors.
Annette Akinsete, chief executive and national director of SCFN, said that most applicants for the procedure claim to have secured compatible stem cell donors, a crucial factor for a successful outcome.
As awareness and support for stem cell donation grow, coupled with increasing expertise, the programme is poised to reverse a significant portion of the over $1 billion spent annually by Nigerians on medical care abroad, thereby reducing pressure on scarce foreign exchange.
“I have received 36 inquiries from the US and UK, including Nigerians and non-Nigerians, seeking bone marrow transplants in Nigeria. We also have 127 potential patients in our database who are ready for the procedure and have undergone HLA typing. Before proceeding, these patients must be assessed by LUTH clinicians, which can take up to six months,” Akinsete said.
In September, the first two successful transplants were performed on a paediatric patient and an adult, following weeks of preparations, including chemotherapy and blood transfusions. It further involved bone marrow stem cells harvested from family donors and infused into the patients.
The patients were discharged after weeks of observation.
According to SCFN, bone marrow transplant is currently the only established cure for the disease. Until now, the unavailability of a fully-equipped bone marrow transplant centre had forced many Nigerians to seek the procedure abroad at exorbitant costs.
Tunde Afolabi, chairman of the board of directors of SCFN, noted that while the cost of bone marrow transplants in Nigeria remains high, it is still more affordable and culturally convenient than seeking treatment abroad.
