Thrombosis killing millions in Africa

Accra, June 8, GNA - Thrombosis, the clotting of the blood in the heart or blood vessel, is becoming a major killer disease in Africa but most medical experts rarely pay attention to it, a Medical Specialist said in Accra on Thursday.

Dr Abdullah K. Kirumira, a Ugandan Medical Specialist in Laboratory Diagnostics systems, said post-mortem examinations had revealed that about 70 per cent of deaths in Africa resulted from thrombosis problems. He said many African Doctors were not monitoring the problem of thrombosis and homeostasis (slowing or stoppage of the flow of blood in the vein or artery).

"Thrombosis is today considered as Africa's most ignored killer disease," he noted.

Dr Kirumira, who is the President of BioMedica, a privately owned Canadian medical biotechnology company, said his mission was to promote the awareness of coagulation test in Africa and to make it part of medical practice.

He said a lot of people were dying due to thrombosis in spite of the low cost of the lab test and treatment. Ghanaian medical practitioners at the two-day exhibition to showcase wide range of lab technologies in Accra attested to the growing menace of thrombosis.

Among the devices was a blood coagulation test technology for routine blood clotting test.