National Sickle Cell Anaemia Elimination Mission:
Prime Minister will launch the National Sickle Cell Anaemia Elimination Mission at a public programme in Shahdol, Madhya Pradesh.
- National Sickle Cell Anaemia Elimination Mission was announced as part of the Union Budget 2023.
- Vision is to eliminate sickle cell disease (SCD) as a public health problem in India before 2047.
- The overall aim is to enable access to affordable and quality health care for all SCD patients and to lower the prevalence through awareness, change of practices and screening interventions.
- The mission will entail awareness creation, universal screening of seven crore people in the 0-40 years age group in affected tribal areas and counselling through collaborative efforts of central ministries and state governments.
- Initially, the focus shall be on 17 states with higher prevalence of SCD,, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, West Bengal, Odisha, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Assam, Uttar Pradesh, Kerala, Bihar and Uttarakhand.
Sickle Cell Anaemia:
- It is an inherited blood disorder.
- It affects haemoglobin, the molecule in red blood cells that delivers oxygen to cells throughout the body.
- People with this disease have atypical haemoglobinmolecules called haemoglobin S, which can distort red blood cells into a sickle, or crescent, shape.
- These sickle cells also become rigid and sticky, which can slow or block blood flow.
- The cause of Sickle cell disease is a defective gene called a sickle cell gene.
- A person will be born with sickle cell disease only if two genes are inherited—one from the mother and one from the father.
