I have been involved with the sickle cell anemia program in India since the last 45 years. The condition was first diagnosed in India in the Nilgiri Hills in Tamil Nadu in 1952 and from 1952 to 1978 research was carried out for dissertations and theses published in journals.
In Gujarat, the first patient, a tribal, was diagnosed by me in 1978 at Valsad. As this is a genetic disease and found mostly amongst tribal people, I realized that these patients will never spend their own money in going to the laboratory and if their blood is not tested, they will be wrongly diagnosed as suffering from iron deficiency anemia and receive incorrect treatment. Hence the government should run a special comprehensive program for the control and treatment of sickle cell anemia.
With Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s launching of the Sickle Cell Anemia Mission this neglected disease will now receive proper attention. When he was chief minister of Gujarat, the then tribals minister Mangubhai Patel, who is now the governor of Madhya Pradesh, had brought this to his attention. Modi took up the matter and appointed Valsad Raktdan Kendra as a nodal agency and me as honorary director of a governmental-nongovernmental organization program to include sickle cell anemia in the state health services. Today it is a model program at the all India level after receiving the Prime Minister’s Award.
I am happy to be involved in this mission and grateful that my dream has come true. Dr YAZDI ITALIA
Valsad
yitalia@yahoo.com