Chinyere Amalu
3 August 2008
The Director-General of National Agency for Biotechnology Development Agency (NABDA), Mr. Solomon Bamidele, Thursday, disagreed with the belief that Sickle Cell has no cure, saying that with the transplantation of Bone Marrow through stem cell, the disease can be cured permanently.
The director-general who was represented by Dr. Alex Akpa, from the agency at a press briefing in Abuja to announce the arrival of Dr. Allan Wayne who carried out Bone Marrow transplantation on two Nigerian children 10 years ago to Nigerians.
According to him, if stem cell technology can be domesticated in Nigeria, it will reduce the cost of travelling abroad to carry out the operation, adding that Bone Marrow transplant can only work in children not adults.
His words, "It is possible to cure sickle cell disease permanently through bone marrow transplant and this is the significant of Dr. Wayne's visit and his presentation on Monday. He treated two Nigerian children 10 years and ten years after, they have been completely cured of sickle cell disease.
"One of them is AA the other one is AS. They were completely cured of sickle cell disease. The procedure is very expensive, even in the United States, but we are hoping that if we can domesticate this technology it will become cheaper so that many families can afford to treat their children with this ailment.
"From the information at our disposal, the procedure works mainly in children. There is an age limit, above which it is difficult to carry out this procedure. So it has to be carried out when the child is still young.
"Sickle cell disease is a black man disease. By conservative estimate, over 4 million Nigerians have sickle cell disease while another 25 million Nigerians are carriers. It is estimated than more than one hundred thousand children are born with sickle cell disease in Nigeria each year.
"We think that Nigeria being the largest black nation on earth should be able to spearhead effort to find permanent cure or solution to this problem. I said that the procedure is expensive, but if we can bring this procedure back to Nigeria it will help a lot of family".
He pointed out that the operation is carried out through stem cell technology, but maintained that Dr. Wayne was coming to sensitise Nigerians specifically on Bone Marrow transplant to cure childhood disorder.
"There are some other diseases that can be treated using stem cell therapy. Bone marrow transplantation is actual same as stem cell.
" Other diseases that can be cured using this technology include; diabetes cancer arthritis, stroke, sickle cell anaemia, kidney, liver lung and heart diseases, mental retardation, infertility, spinal cord diseases and HIV.
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