Today we went along with the Ebola team as they conducted their survey in Makumbana, a local village. After each interview, we were able to ask the villagers about sickle cell anemia using a translator.
Almost every person we asked said that they had never heard of sickle cell. Even when the translator described the primary symptom, pain crisis (which the translator described as bone pain), they said they didn’t know anyone with the disease. Only one person said that they had actually heard of it, a teacher, who said that the person with suspected sickle cell was dead now.
Although these answers were disappointing to our project goals, they don’t necessarily prove that sickle cell isn’t a big problem in the area. Following our discussion with Dr. Jaja, it seems equally possible that the prevalence of sickle cell is downplayed by the fact that up to 90% of children with sickle cell die before the age of 5, and the lack of understanding of the symptoms.
