No fund for Gujarat despite highest cases among tribals

Vadodara: In the country, state’s tribal population has the highest number of sickle cell anaemia cases but yet, not a single penny trickled in from the Union tribal affairs ministry’s coffers in the past six years to help the state tackle with the malaise.

This information was revealed in the Lok Sabha on Monday by Renuka Singh Saruta,

Union minister of state for tribal affairs

, in response to a question. The elaborated response also showed that other states, which either did not have any cases of sickle cell anaemia or have lesser number of cases than Gujarat, had, however, received funds that were released by the ministry amounting to Rs 60 crore to fight the disease as well as for screening.

States like Himachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Telangana, Tripura and Uttar Pradesh do not have any sickle cell anaemia cases, and yet received Rs 421.87 lakh, the minister stated.

The minister further said that more than 86.4 lakh tribal people in Gujarat have been screened in collaboration with Indian Council of Medical Research and Department of Biotechnology, of whom, 29,266 people were found to be suffering from the disease. More than 7.2 lakh people were detected with traits of sickle cell anaemia, which too is the highest in the country.

Suruta informed the lower house that a project has been given to National Tribal Research Institute for mapping of sickle cell anaemia among tribal communities and organizations working in sickle cell and availability of blood banks in coordination with health and family welfare ministry.

The state had started its own sickle cell anaemia control programme in 2006 in five districts of south Gujarat on a public-private partnership (PPP) basis. This was later extended to seven other remaining tribal districts. Later, Gujarat Sickle Cell Anaemia Control Society was formed and the state government had even requested the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare to launch a National Sickle Cell Anaemia Control Programme.


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