Director's Message: Know your SCD status

Every year on June 19, World Sickle Cell Disease Day is observed. The Sickle Cell Unit at the Tropical Medicine Research Institute, University of the West Indies, invites all Jamaicans to pause to consider the impact of sickle-cell disease (SCD) on our nation.

One in every 150 babies born in Jamaica has sickle-cell disease. Fifteen per cent of all Jamaicans are at risk of having an affected child. We are all affected by SCD in some way, whether we know it or not.

This year, our theme is 'Sickle Cell Disease: What you don't know may just hurt you'. Every year, children with SCD are born to parents who are unaware of their risk of having an affected child. Children who are not screened at birth may suffer illness, or even death, due to their parents' ignorance regarding the disease. Teachers, school nurses, employers and other members of our society may miss opportunities to positively impact the lives of affected persons.

The staff and patients of the Sickle Cell Unit invite you to learn more about this condition and to participate in fighting the stigma that affected persons now face. The Ministry of Health, Sickle Cell Unit, and Sickle Cell Trust are working together to ensure that all public hospitals will offer newborn screening for SCD.

Let us work together so that every person will know their own SCD status and that of their family so that we can all improve the lives of persons living with SCD in Jamaica.

Professor Jennifer Knight-Madden,

Director of the Sickle Cell Unit