Topic covered:
- Issues related to health.
World Haemophilia Day
What to study?
For Prelims and Mains: Haemophilia- causes, effects, treatment and spread.
Context: April 17 is World Haemophilia Day.
What is it?
Haemophilia is a medical condition, mostly inherited, in which the ability of blood to clot is severely reduced, so that even a minor injury can cause severe bleeding.
Why men are more vulnerable?
Because of the genetics involved in the way the sex of a child is determined, men are more vulnerable to haemophilia than women.
Haemophilia is caused by a defect in the X chromosome. If a girl is born with one defective X chromosome, her other X chromosome can compensate for it. In such a case, she is a carrier of haemophilia but will not suffer from the condition herself. Only if both her X chromosomes are defective will she suffer from haemophilia herself. On the other hand, if a boy is born with a defective X chromosome, he does not have the second X chromosome to compensate for it, and will suffer from haemophilia. That is the reason haemophilia is more common among men.
Worldwide spread:
- It is a rare disorder worldwide — one type, called Haemophilia A, occurs in about 1 in 5,000 births, while Haemophilia B is even rarer at about 1 in about 20,000 births. A vast number of cases, however, are believed to go unreported, particularly in India.
- According to the World Federation of Haemophilia’s Annual Global Survey 2017, released in October 2018, there were over 1.96 lakh persons living with haemophilia across the world in 2017. In the country-wise data, India emerges with the highest count at nearly 19,000.
Treatments for haemophilia:
There’s no cure for haemophilia, but treatment usually allows a person with the condition to enjoy a good quality of life. Genetically engineered clotting factor medicines are used to prevent and treat prolonged bleeding. These medicines are given as an injection.
In milder cases, injections are usually only given in response to prolonged bleeding. More severe cases are treated with regular injections to prevent bleeding.
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