Campaign launched to check spread of Thalassemia

New Delhi, May 11 (UNI) To check the spread of Thalassemia, a deadly blood disorder, among Indians, Dr Lal Pathlabs has launched a fortnight long 'War Against Thalassemia' campaign under which people are being screened for the lethal aisease.

India has an estimated four crore thalassemic carriers, which means one out of every 25 Indians is a carrier of this deadly blood disorder. What's worse, an estimated 10,000 children are born with this disease every year. About 80-90 per cent of these Thalassemic infants die either undiagnosed or because of lack of proper treatment and those surviving require regular blood transfusion to survive.

Dr Lal Pathlabs, a medical diagnostic company, is conducting a Thalassemia Fortnight during May 1-15 in association with Thalassemics India, and offering 50 per cent discount for Thalassemia screening at Delhi, NCR centres during this period.

''Thalassemia is a fairly prevalent disease in India, with Northern India contributing a large number of silent carriers and patients. Severe forms of Thalassemia cannot be treated with any type of dietary supplements or medicine and the disease has to be prevented and not cured,'' said Dr Arvind Lal, CMD of Dr Lal PathLabs.

Thalassemia, in the language of genetics, is an 'autosomal recessive disease' which affects the haemoglobin present in the red blood cells of the body. Classically, the haemoglobin 'binds' the oxygen to it and then carries it to various organs and tissues in the body thus making the organs 'breathe'. In Thalassemic patients, the genetic defect results in the haemoglobin becoming more 'brittle' thus resulting in a very short life span of the red blood cell. There are three varieties of Thalassemia - Thalassemia Major, Thalassemia Intermedia and Thalassemia Minor or the 'carrier' or 'silent' variety.

Among Indians, the prevalence of Thalassemia is very high among certain communities such as Punjabis, Sindhis, Gujaratis, Bengalis, Parsis and Lohanas. In fact, there is a high incidence of Thalassemia i.e up to 15 per cent among Punjabis and Sindhis, who migrated from West Pakistan. In Delhi alone, about 200 Thalassemia major children are born every year.

In an ICMR study conducted between September 1984 and April 1988 across Mumbai, Delhi and Kolkata, over 12,000 school children were examined which showed prevalence of Thalassemia was 2.7 per cent in Mumbai, 5.5 per cent in Delhi and 10.4 per cent in Kolkata.

Tests conducted at Dr Lal PathLabs also show an upward trend. In 2005, of the 12,120 Thalassemia tests by the special Hb HPLC/Electrophoresis technique, 1,738 or 14.34 per cent were reported as Thalassemia minor (carrier state) and 82 or 4.7 per cent as Thalassemia major.

Ignorance about the disease is likely to lead to increasing numbers of Thalassemia gene carriers or 'minors', who on marrying each other are likely to result in 25 per cent chance of giving birth to a Thalassemia major baby, which is avoidable.

UNI