Nigeria Senate Passes Bill to Control Sickle Cell Disease

The senate has passed a bill seeking to improve the management of sickle cell disease in Nigeria.

The bill passed third reading after chairman of the committee on health, Sen. Yahaya Oloriegbe, presented a report.

The chairman in his presentation, explained that sickle cell anaemia is an inherited disorder of Haemoglobin (SS) from either or both parents of a child affecting nearly 100 million people globally.

Sen. Oloriegbe stated that World Health Organisation (W.H.O) in its report on Sickle Cell in 2006 ranks Nigeria first in the world as a sickle cell endemic country.

He warned that the disease had the potential of affecting Nigeria’s aspiration of attaining  Good Health and Well-being of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of 2020, unless special attention was paid to the prevention and management of the disease.

“The bill would establish the much needed legal framework for the prevention, control and management of the continuous spread of the disease, as well as avert early deaths and unnecessary medical expenses by families.

“The bill will strengthen existing structure, encourage and strengthen support groups and other groups to be able to assess the effectiveness or otherwise of the control strategies in place to eliminate sickle cell disease,” Sen. Yahaya Oloriegbe said.