Sickle Cell Screening Program off to a great start!

I am excited to share an update on the early data from the Sickle Cell Disease screening program at Koutiala Hospital in Mali, Africa.  The program got off to a quick start in mid-August with Dr. MacLean and his staff doing a great job training the delivery room nurses on how to collect heel stick and umbilical cord samples on all of the infants born at the hospital.  566 newborns have already been screened in the first 4 months and 28 new cases of sickle cell disease have been diagnosed!  The medical team is now hard at work counseling the families of these new patients, starting the appropriate antibiotic treatment, and putting in place the necessary follow-up plan to prevent the severe complications that so often occur in undiagnosed patients.  The death rate for children with untreated sickle cell disease is thought to be as high as 50% before the age of 5 in this part of sub-Saharan Africa, so diagnosing the disease is the first step in starting to save lives.  This is the first newborn screening program in the entire country!

The picture above shows a toddler who was diagnosed with sickle cell disease while I was in Mali in August.  His older brother was diagnosed 5 hours away in the capital city (before our program started) after having multiple complications.  Most families from the area around Koutiala do not have the transportation or money to travel to the capital for testing.

This is the basic equipment required to run the screening samples.  Almost 70 infant samples can be run at a time, so the screening cards are batched and the test is run every few weeks.

Screening premature twins in the incubator.

Joseph, the Malian nurse learning the heel stick process in this picture, has now taken the lead role in providing counseling and basic follow-up for the newly diagnosed patients.


In addition, the program has screened 378 non-newborns (older children and adults) and has found 46 patients with sickle cell disease who are now getting the necessary counseling and follow-up care.

Thank you for your continued prayers and financial support of the work taking place at Koutiala Hospital!  I am humbled to see the ways that God can do big things from small ideas.  If you are interested, the secure link for donating to Dr. MacLean's medical work fund is:
http://tinyurl.com/macleanworkfund


I will post some new pics from the program soon!