A technician preparing blood smear for sickling test to diagnose sickle cell anaemia.
| Photo Credit: Representational Photo
The CSIR-Sickle Cell Anaemia Mission has so far screened close to 28 lakh persons across several States and found the prevalence of carriers and patients of Sickle Cell Anaemia (SCA) to be 8-10% and 09-1.0%, respectively.
A National Sickle Cell Anaemia Elimination Mission (NSCAEM) was launched in July 2023 to eliminate the disease by 2047 by aiming to screen seven crore people below the age of 40 years in high prevalence tribal areas followed by counselling.
However, after screening close to 5.3 crore people across the States, it shows that 2.38% of the population are carriers and 0.36% could be diseased persons. But, it is quite possible the number of carriers and diseases persons could be much higher among the tribal population and others, according to scientists.
It is because CSIR-Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) under its own extensive screening programme in a district of Maharashtra shows the disease prevalence to about 1.4% having the disease and 23.5% of the population being carriers.
“This is our hypothesis based on our own low cost, rapid and reliable Dried Blood Spot (DBR) based molecular test validated as a screening cum confirmation test with a specificity and sensitivity each of 100% by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR),” said senior scientist Giriraj Ratan Chandak, who had developed the test with his team.
He said that with a drop of blood, the indigenously developed test, is capable of differentiating between normal, carrier and diseased individuals. It has been successfully tested in Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan over the years.
The NSCAEM, in fact, uses a different screening model dependent on solubility based screening followed by capillary electrophoresis and the method is most likely missing the disease carriers and patients (4-8%). Further, there is a high cost in confirming final diagnosis because of the need to retrace solubility positive individuals and collection of intravenous anti-coagulated blood, explained Mr. Chandak.
Incidentally, CSIR-CCMB is not part of the NSCAEM mission as it is being coordinated by Ministry of Tribal Affairs and Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. “Our testing method has been evaluated by the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare and NITI-Aayog and is now included in the NSCAEM portal. We are in consultation with various stakeholders and ready to contribute to the mission,” he added.
Published – April 05, 2025 12:53 on is
