For health professionals

Hemoglobal® began its mission in Sri Lanka guided by the academic focus of its founders, Drs. Nancy Olivieri and David Weatherall in the inherited disorders of hemoglobin. These disorders, including the thalassaemia syndromes and sickle cell disease, are the most common monogenic diseases worldwide. It has been estimated that approximately 7% of the world’s population are carriers for one of these disorders, and that up to half a million babies with the most severe forms are born annually. For the World Health Organization’s report on Hereditary Disease Community Control Programmes, please click here.

Improvements in nutrition and public health in emerging countries have resulted in an epidemiological transition characterized by a fall in mortality of children under the age of five years. Hence, children with serious diseases who would formerly have died in infancy, survive and require diagnosis and management, a trend that is now occurring throughout the Middle East, the Indian subcontinent, and in many parts of Asia. In 2006, the World Health Organization acknowledged thalassemia as a major global health problem.

Critically to the emerging focus of Hemoglobal® is that this improved survival has relevance to all forms of childhood illness. This is why Hemoglobal® will be expanding its goals to conducting research in children with other forms of severe disorders affecting the blood, including childhood leukemia and haemophilia.

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