our correspondentLudhiana, May 8
Over 80 consultants, senior residents and nursing and paramedical staff of Dayanand Medical College and Hospital donated blood for thalassemic children at a camp to observe International Thalassemia Day at the DMCH here today.
According to the in charge of the Department of Blood Transfusion at the DMCH, the initiative had generated a good response. It was an impetus for many voluntary organisations to come forward for the aid of thallessemic children, he added.
Two-year-old Shalini has to bear the pain of needle pricks for over three hours once a month. She is a thalassemic child who comes to the city from a remote village in Himachal Pradesh for blood transfusion every month. According to her father, a Railways employee at Roorkee, she had only 3 grams of blood when the disease was detected.
Two-and-a-half-year-old Akashbir is another thalassemic child who comes here every 20 days for blood transfusion. His mother Charanjit Kaur said he, their only child, had missed heartbeats a number of times.
According to a Reader at the Department of Paediatrics at the DMCH, over 3.5 per cent of the total Indian population is thalassemia trait carrier and 7.5 per cent to 15 per cent of the total Punjab population is disease carrier. Thalassemia is the most common inherited disorder in the world. The thalassemics cannot form their own blood and their blood cells break down easily. They need blood transfusion after every 20 days for the whole of their life.
The treatment of the disease requires between Rs 50,000 and Rs 2 lakh per year. The disease can be diagnosed only during pregnancy. The Punjab Thalassemic Welfare Society was registered in September 1999. With the efforts of the management of the DMCH and the district Red Cross, the treatment has become affordable now, claims the doctor.
