Bharatpur: 42 Children in Rajasthan Test Hemophilia Positive; CMO Calls for Awareness

Hemophilia is a disorder in which blood doesn't clot normally. When blood can't clot properly, excessive bleeding (external and internal) occurs after any injury or damage. As many as 42 children from Bharatpur have been affected by this deadly disease

Bharatpur (Rajasthan): In an unfortunate piece of news, on World day, 42 children from Bharatpur have been affected by this deadly disease, calling for serious awareness in this dubious time.

Hemophilia is caused by a mutation or change, in one of the genes, that provides instructions for making the clotting factor proteins needed to form a blood clot. This change or mutation can prevent the clotting protein from working properly or to be missing altogether. These genes are located on the X chromosome.

Chief Medical Officer of Health office Pawan Kumar said that hemophilia is a genetic disease and the sole way to prevent this disease is by conducting a genetic testing of both parties before marriage. Before marriage, the boy and girl should undergo tests for Hepatitis B, C, Syphilis etc.

If both the boy and girl test hemophilia, there are high chances that their children will test hemophilia major.

One person per 5,000 is suffering from this disease, Kumar said. "Children suffering from this disease are deficient in blood clotting factor 8 and factor 9 or both. Due to this, the child's blood does not get clotted in time and blood starts leaking through the internal and external parts of the body," he added.

This leakage is hard to stop, impacting the child's hands, legs and other joints of the body which slowly start getting damaged. "To prevent the leakage caused by this disease, factors 8 and 9 are injected into the children's body superficially. On an average, these factors are administered to children suffering from haemophilia twice a month. Several children have to apply these factors three times as well." he added.

It is indispensable that children with this disease undergo blood transfusion from time to time to keep themselves fit. Kumar said, "To ensure that there is no shortage of blood in the blood bank for children, timely blood donation camps must be organised. We organise workshops from time to time to make the parents of the affected children aware about the symptoms and treatment of this disease."