Andhra Medical College to screen tribal kids for thalassemia

VISAKHAPATNAM: Andhra Medical College has launched a pilot project to screen children from the tribal pockets of Visakhapatnam district for thalassemia. Thalassemia, the most common hemoglobinopathy, is prevalent in the Agency area of Visakhapatnam, partly due to consanguineous marriages.The Andhra Pradesh government sanctioned the project to AMC under the Rashtriya Bal Swasthya Karyakram. Andhra Medical College has procured specialised diagnostic equipment with about Rs 20 lakh for this pilot project to screen children aged between five and eight years.Speaking to TOI, Andhra Medical College principal Dr PV Sudhakar said the project also involves conducting community-level awareness programmes. “While the pathology department will take care of screening of the kids, the community medicine department of the college will pitch in for conducting the awareness programmes. These are aimed at improving health-seeking behaviour and to accept the screening and management of thalassemia. For instance, thalassemia in the Visakhapatnam tribal areas is closely associated with consanguineous marriages. The awareness programmes will discourage consanguineous marriages,” said Dr Sudhakar.Dr Sudhakar added that the high-performance liquid chromatography machine was procured for the accurate diagnosis of thalassemia patients. “ITDA-Paderu project officer R Gopala Krishna is supporting the project on various fronts,” said Dr Sudhakar.Principal investigator of the project and head of the department of pathology Dr A Bhagyalakshmi said about 2,000 children, aged between five and eight, will be screened for thalassemia under the project. “Initially the kids will be tested through haemoglobin estimation and other primary tests. If there is any abnormality in these tests, the child will be referred for a high-performance liquid chromatography test. However, even if the primary tests turn out to be negative, some kids will be referred for the HPLC tests based on their signs and symptomatology. This will help in early detection of the cases, which will in turn help identify the cases in siblings of patients. A medical register will be maintained for the screened children,” said Dr Bhagyalakshmi.