Sickle cell clinical laboratory to be set up at KATH

The Newborn Screening for Sickle Cell Disease Programme of Ghana has begun a process for the creation of a clinical laboratory at the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH) in a bid to widen the scope of services it offers to sickle cell disease patients.

Professor Francis K. Nkrumah, director of the Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research, who made this known, observed that even though clinical laboratory services were already being offered to sickle cell disease patients at KATH, such services need to be supplemented and expanded to cope up with the large number of patients.


Professor Nkrumah was delivering a lecture on: "The sickle cell disease project in Kumasi: Historical perspective" at a one-day seminar organised by the Newborn Screening for Sickle Cell Disease Programme in Kumasi on Friday as part of the programme's 10th anniversary. The programme, which is being held under the theme: "10 years of sickle cell disease screening in Kumasi," was attended by 400 participants drawn from the various regional health directorates and other health institutions as well as the USA and some countries in Africa.


The programme, that was established in Kumasi in 1992, is directly funded by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institutes of Health, USA, through the Director of the Comprehensive Sickle Cell Centre, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, USA. The Ministry of Health, however, also gives support funding through provision of personnel and facilities for implementation of the programme.

Professor Nkrumah, who is also a co-investigator of the programme's advisory committee, indicated that the sickle cell clinic, which was inaugurated with 10 patients at the KATH in 1992, now has more than 6,000 patients, which therefore, demands expansion of facilities to cope up with the increasing numbers.


A fraternal message from the Ashanti Region branch of the Ghana Medical Association (GMA) read by the Divisional Chairman, Dr Robert Tagoe, urged operators of the sickle cell disease programme to consider extending the programme to the rural communities instead of concentrating all their activities in the urban centres.


Another message from the Sickle Cell Disease Association and presented by a representative of the Association, Dr E.K. Appiah, said the Association had launched a fund raising drive for the construction of a building at KATH to serve as the Kumasi Centre for Sickle Cell Disease.