Sickle Cell Laboratory Project
Nigeria has the largest concentration of people with sickle cell disease in the world and of the 5 – 6 million babies born per year in Nigeria, approximately 3% have sickle cell disease. 80% of babies born with SCD in Nigeria die before reaching their fifth birthday. This is often as a result of not being diagnosed and delays in accessing health care, when ill.
The NLI Sickle Cell project is aimed at developing a National Screening and Diagnostic Laboratory (phase 1) and a networked Newborn Sickle Cell Screening Program and Care Service (phase 2) that will link three major cities in Nigeria. The first Laboratory will be built within the National Sickle Cell Foundation Centre, Lagos. An overview of the deliverables/objectives under the NLI Sickle Cell Project are as follows:
- Provide a laboratory that is capable of servicing antenatal, neonatal and other haemoglobinopathy screening programmes.
- Develop links for other reputable screening laboratories to enable access for confirmatory diagnosis of novel and other unusual haemoglobins.
- Develop facilities in the laboratory to offer onsite training in use of laboratory equipment and techniques for laboratory technicians, hematologists and other relevant professionals nationally.
- Establish a national database of hemoglobins and a clinical haemoglobinopathy register.
- The laboratory to act as a national coordinating centre for data collection in Nigeria; and promotion of cross fertilization of ideas for biomedical, clinical and other research locally, regionally, nationally and internationally
