When Is World Sickle Cell Day: World Sickle Cell Knowledge Day 2023 is held around the world on June 19, 2023, to raise awareness about sickle cell disease. The goal of this yearly event on June 19 is to make more people aware of sickle cell disease in humans. The UN set the day aside to raise knowledge about the illness, how to treat it, what kind of care is needed, and how to help people who are sick. World Sickle Cell Awareness Day 2023 is a day that doctors and non-profits hold every year to bring attention to the disease through campaigns and boot camps.
People with sickle cell disease have red blood cells that are shaped like sickles. These cells can stick together and make it hard for the body to receive oxygen and blood. This blood disease is caused by genes that are passed down from parent to child. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says that people who have this disease may get infections, pain, anemia, and other serious health issues that need to be treated. For early disease detection and emergency treatment, it’s important to see a doctor right away if you have a fever, severe pain in the abdomen, chest, bones, or joints, swelling in the hands or feet, abdominal swelling (especially if it hurts to touch), pale skin or nail beds, a yellow tint to the skin, or whites of the eyes.
History of World Sickle Cell Day
World Sickle Cell Day was meant to teach people about Sickle Cell Disease (SCD), its signs, and the hard times that people who have it and their families go through.
The date was chosen to honor the day that the UN General Assembly officially named sickle cell disease a threat to public health.
This blood disease, which used to be called sickle cell anemia, affects millions of people around the world, both adults and children. The World Health Organization (WHO) says it is the top cause of early death for children under five years old in many African countries. It is also a very serious threat to life.
In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) celebrates World Sickle Cell Day by spreading information about the disease and helping people who have its symptoms.
Red blood cells that have sickle cell disease fold into a “sickle” shape. There aren’t enough good red blood cells because these abnormal cells don’t last as long. This can cause a number of health problems. Kids with SCD who are born in places where health care is easy to get have a good chance of growing up healthy and normally.
Even though SCD is the top cause of death in the world, it is important to remember that some people get better and that the disease doesn’t spread. However, the treatment requires a difficult bone marrow transplant, which is dangerous and can be out of reach for many people who need it.
Meaning of World Sickle Cell Day 2024
Because everyone sees it differently, we can’t tell you what it means. Some people who are facing this illness may remember this day, but for others, it may be a day they never hear about.
Only a few people know that about 5% of the people in the world have certain genes that can mess up their hemoglobin. Sickle cell disease is more likely to happen to people whose relatives come from Sub-Saharan Africa, Saudi Arabia, India, or the Mediterranean. Because people move around a lot, this gene has spread all over the world.
According to current science, this type of anemia can be cured and can also be avoided. Before getting married or having a child, you can find out how likely they are to get an illness. A way of prevention called “premarital screening” is used in many places, such as Canada, the Maldives, Cyprus, and Iran. It is strongly pushed in Greece and Italy. The World Health Organization (WHO) wants these methods to be used by many people.
How to Observe World Sickle Cell Day
Find out more about sickle cell disease and do what you can to help find a cure. To celebrate World Sickle Cell Day, you might want to do the following:
Look into the things that medical groups fund that help treat or support people with sickle cell disease. A lot of these groups hold one-of-a-kind teaching events on World Sickle Cell Day.
Talk to doctors or professors in your area to find out how you can help groups and organizations that help people with sickle cell disease. Find other ways to support this important day, like going to educational seminars or getting your kids involved in school events.
World Sickle Cell Awareness Day 2023 Theme
The theme for World Sickle Cell Awareness Day 2023 is “Building and Strengthening Global Sickle Cell Communities, Formalizing Newborn Screening, and Knowing Your Sickle Cell Disease Status.” Today is a day to raise knowledge about the treatments for sickle cell disease and the global goal of getting rid of the disease for good.
Sickle cell disease is a type of anemia that is passed down through families. Its red blood cells can’t carry enough oxygen around the body. When red blood cells are healthy, they are round. But when they are sick, they become shaped like the crescent moon’s sickle, which makes it harder for them to travel through the body. Because of how they’ve changed, they often get stuck in tiny blood vessels, stopping blood from getting to other parts of the body.
World Sickle Cell Day
Around the world, June 19 is World Sickle Cell Day, which is also known as World Sickle Cell Awareness Day. Its goal is to raise knowledge about sickle cell disease, which is also called sickle cell anemia and is the most common genetic disease in the world.
A problem with the hemoglobin molecule, which is in charge of carrying oxygen to red blood cells, is what makes sickle-cell disease (SCD) an inherited blood condition. The name of the disease comes from the strange sickle-shaped shape that cells with it take on.
SCD can lead to many problems, some of which are deadly. The worst health problems that can happen to people with sickle cell disease (SCD) are stroke, major infections, and sickle cell crisis, which is marked by excruciating pain attacks. Avoiding these problems is only possible for people with SCD who can get good medical care.
Silent cell disease (SCD) kills more than 100,000 people a year and affects more than 300,000 babies. The places that are most harmed are tropical ones, like Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, and the West Indies.
World Sickle Cell Day gives global health groups a chance to hold events and programs that educate people about sickle cell anemia and stress how important it is to do more study to find better ways to treat it.
Why is sickle cell Day celebrated?
The goal of this day is to recognize sickle cell anemia is a public health problem and promote education about this genetic condition.
World Sickle Cell Day is celebrated every year on June 19 in many countries around the world. It was first recognized by the UN in 2008. The main goals of this day are to support public health education about sickle cell anemia and make more people aware of it as a genetic disease.
Between 300,000 and 400,000 babies are born each year with sickle cell disease, which is one of the most common diseases that are passed down through families. About 12,000 babies born in the US each year are born with sickle cell disease. People of any race or culture can get the condition, but people of African or Hispanic descent are more likely to get it. Everyone in the US has sickle cell disease. One in 365 Black people and one in 16,300 Hispanic people do.
What is the theme for sickle cell Day 2023?
World Sickle Cell Awareness Day Theme 2023
This year, the theme of World Sickle Disease Day is ‘Building and strengthening global sickle cell communities, formalising newborn screening and knowing your sickle cell disease status’.
Today is World Sickle Cell Disease Day, and the theme is “Knowing your sickle cell disease status, formalizing newborn screening, and building global sickle cell communities.”
In the fight against sickle cell disease, this topic stresses how important it is to start finding the genotype in both people and babies. It also promotes the use of cutting-edge technologies to find out if someone has sickle cell disease.
What month is sickle cell awareness?
Sickle cell disease is the most common inherited blood disorder in the United States and affects approximately 100,000 Americans.
Red blood cell diseases that are passed down through families can damage hemoglobin, an important molecule that moves oxygen around the body. Red blood cells are normally flexible and disc-shaped, which makes it easy for them to move through blood vessels. Red blood cells in people with sickle cell disease, on the other hand, are shaped like a circle or “sickle” because of a genetic flaw. These changed cells are less flexible, which makes it harder to move and could stop blood from getting to some parts of the body.
If the blood flow is blocked, it could lead to serious problems like strokes, vision loss, illnesses, and pain crises.
A bone marrow donation is the only known way to treat sickle cell disease, which lasts a person’s whole life. Gene therapy is another idea being looked into as a possible cure. There are, however, useful ways to lessen symptoms and make life longer. Sickle cell disease patients work with their medical team to create a personalized treatment plan that will help them control their sickness and ease their symptoms.
Why is sickle cell called sickle?
Healthy red blood cells are round, and they move through small blood vessels to carry oxygen to all parts of the body. In someone who has SCD, the hemoglobin is abnormal, which causes the red blood cells to become hard and sticky and look like a C-shaped farm tool called a “sickle.”
Sickle cell disease, or SCD, is a group of red blood cell illnesses that are passed down from parent to child. A protein called hemoglobin helps red blood cells carry oxygen, which is very important. Healthy red blood cells are round and move easily through tiny blood pathways to get oxygen to every part of the body.
People who have sickle cell disease (SCD) have hemoglobin that isn’t working right, which changes red blood cells into a sticky, hard C-shaped structure that looks like a “sickle,” a farming tool. There is a chronic lack of red blood cells because sickle cells die off too quickly. Also, as they move through the body, they often get stuck in small blood vessels, stopping blood flow. When this blockage gets in the way, it can hurt and lead to dangerous side effects like infections, acute chest syndrome, and strokes.
Who started sickle cell?
Several sources detail a multicentric model in which 4 independent genetic mutations (3 in Africa and 1 in either Saudi Arabia or central India) occurred over 70,000 to 150,000 years ago, spanning 3000 to 6000 generations, and these 4 original genetic events resulted in the inheritance of the sickle cell gene.
A number of authors have come up with a multicentric model to explain how sickle cell gene changes happen. This idea says that between 70,000 and 150,000 years ago, four different genetic changes took place. All but one of these changes happened in Africa. The other one happened in either Saudi Arabia or central India. The sickle cell gene was passed down through families over 3,00–6,000 generations.
Still, the newest and most widely accepted facts back up the idea of a single center. This idea says that the sickle cell mutation happened in one person in western Africa, most likely in the jungle of Cameroon today. In Egypt and Cameroon, the SCD gene is found in all five haplotype types, which means it has been present in these countries for a longer time.
Scientists used whole-genome sequencing to find out how old the single change was by following it back 259 generations, which is about 7300 years. This timeline goes back to before the African Bantu moved eastward and southward (extended) about 5,000 years ago.
When someone has sickle cell disease, their red blood cells shape up like the sickle of a crescent moon. This makes it hard for them to move around the body easily. This is a genetic disease that can’t be passed on to other people. There is no lasting way to treat sickle cell anemia, which is a shame. The medical world is keeping a close eye on new developments, and early findings and therapy are still the best ways to lessen their effects.
Sickle cell anemia makes red blood cells twist, which makes it harder for the body to receive oxygen. This is different from iron-deficiency anemia, which makes red blood cells not make enough. A concerted attempt is currently being made to make more people aware of sickle cell anemia as a major health problem around the world. This includes busting lies and spreading accurate information, as well as teaching people the best ways to treat the illness. The focus is also on giving people who have been diagnosed with this sickness the help they need.