In Viet Nam, 13% of the total number of people suffering from thalassemia, which means that 1.4 million people in Viet Nam currently suffer from thalassemia.
Thalassemia is a hereditary blood disorder that causes the body to have less hemoglobin than normal. Hemoglobin enables red blood cells to carry oxygen. Thalassemia can cause anemia and make the patient feel tired. If you have mild thalassemia, treatment may not be needed.
At present, 7% of people in the world already suffer from some degree of thalassemia.
The disease seriously affects the quality of the population and ethnicity, and places a great burden on families and society. The numbers for thalassemia in Viet Nam are staggering: all 63 provinces and 54 ethnic groups have carriers of the disease gene; the rate of carrying the disease gene is more than 13%, or an estimated 14 million people in the country carry the disease gene. Among them, there are many ethnic groups, and the gene carrying rate of thalassemia is as high as 30-40%, and only the Jing ethnic group is 9.8%.
The disease has two prominent manifestations: anemia and iron overload in the body. Severe conditions, if left untreated, can cause serious symptoms, such as: facial skeletal deformities (forehead, flat nose), endocrine dysfunction, growth retardation, liver failure, cirrhosis, heart failure... There is even a danger of death. Patients with thalassemia must receive regular blood transfusions (red blood cells), chelation, and complications in the hospital.
It is estimated that about 8,000 new children are added to the country every year, including about 2,000 children with severe diseases and about 800 children with edema. A person with a serious illness from birth to age 30 needs about VND 3 billion for treatment, and by age 21, about 470 units of blood need to be transfused to stay alive.
Vietnam's health department also said that more investment will be made to prevent such diseases and reduce the proportion of diseases.