Ready-To-Use Food Supplement Could Help Treat Sickle Cell Disease - 10 October 2011

DAR ES SALAAM - A ready-to-eat food supplement may become available to reduce the severity of sickle cell disease if research in Tanzania bears fruit. Scientists at the Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Science in Dar es Salaam are trying to discover why some patients with this genetically-caused disease get ill, while others can have fairly normal health. So they are conducting a study among Africa's largest group of patients with sickle cell disease - around 2,500 - in which a food supplement containing nutrients which could suppress or prevent some of the symptoms is offered as an addition to usual diet. In Tanzania, Dr Sharon Cox of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine told Sarah Maxwell about the study and their hopes of a better future for patients with the disease.