Students of Adjei Kojo Basic School educated on sickle cell disease

The Akorlie Medical Foundation (AMF) has organised an awareness programme on Sickle Cell Anaemia for students of the Adjei Kojo Basic School as part of the foundation’s primary goal of creating awareness of sickle cell disease and sickle cell trait.

The President of the AMF, Mr Randy Akorlie, in an interview said the foundation was dedicated to ensuring the efficient management of sickle cell and associated haematological diseases.

He said that with the month of September being declared as Sickle Cell awareness month, the foundation found it necessary to interact with the pupils to educate them on the disease and its management.

He said the programme would offer pupils the needed education on their sickle genotypes to help them make  informed decisions “when they grow up and decide to settle for marriage.”

A nurse at the Tema General Hospital, Ms Elizabeth Forson, took the students through the session and said sickle cell disease (SCD) “is a hereditary blood disorder characterised by red blood cells that assume an abnormal, rigid, sickle shape during periods of hypoxia, leading to episodes of pain, infection and other complications.

She commended the AMF for creating awareness of the disease in basic schools, adding that general knowledge of the disease among young people would provide them with knowledge of sickle cell that could help improve the focus of genetic counselling when they grow up.