From February 21 to 23, Monaco’s Directorate of International Cooperation brought together in the Principality the six referring doctors of the Sickle Cell Network, from West Africa-Madagascar, to finalise a common guide for the management of the disease.
During these three days the doctors finalised the medical guide that will enable health personnel, with little or no training, to the management of the disease, to detect and to treat sickle cell patients in a health centre in a rural area or in a referral hospital.
The dissemination of this guide, in the six countries concerned, is scheduled for June 19, World Day for the fight against sickle cell disease.
Created in 2013 by the Directorate of International Cooperation, the “Sickle Cell Network” West Africa-Madagascar aims to strengthen partnerships between health professionals and patient associations in six countries: Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Mauritania, Senegal and Madagascar.
Sickle cell disease, an inherited haemoglobin disease, is the world’s foremost genetic disease with 50 million carriers. Despite this high prevalence and a very high mortality rate among unsupported children under five, the disease is poorly understood and efforts to research and access treatment remain rudimentary.