Prevalence of Sickle Cell Among Patients Attending Immunogenetic Diagnostic Laboratory Akwanga, Nasarawa State Nigeria

Sickle Cell Disease is an inherited blood disease caused by abnormal haemoglobin. This study was conducted to determine the prevalence of sickle cell among patients attending Immunogenetic Diagnostic Laboratory Akwanga, Nassarawa State. Aseptically, 2mls of blood was collected from the dorsal vein of the patients into Ethylene Diamine Tetra-acetic Acid (EDTA) bottles and mixed gently to prevent clotting. A small quantity of haemolysate from each of the subjects was placed on a cellulose acetate membrane and carefully introduced into the Electrophoretic tank containing Tris-EDTA buffer at pH 8.6. Electrophoretic separation was then allowed to take place for 15-20 minutes at an Electromotive Force (EMF) of 160V. A total of three hundred and eighty three (283) patients consisting of 195 (50.9%) males and 188 (49.1%) females were sampled in the study. Questionnaires were administered to the patients involved in the study as to obtain demographic and other relevant information regarding the research. The prevalence of the HbAA, HbAS and HbSS were 72.32%, 25.06% and 2.60% respectively. Statistically, there was a significant difference (p<0.05) between gender, age, locality and the prevalence of the Sickle Cell as observed in this study. The prevalence recorded for HbSS in this study is low compared to the value range of 1-10% expected for Nigeria. Based on the findings from this study, it is recommended that genetic counseling policies should be developed to enable prospective couples make decisions aimed at reducing the sickling gene pool in our population.