20 Feb 2014 ThisDay Live shares with us the great news that the University of Benin Teaching Hospital has successfully recorded a breakthrough in a procedure called “Total Red Blood Cell Exchange.”
The Chief Medical Director of the hospital, Prof. Mike Ibadin, who disclosed this to journalists at a press conference in Benin City, said the exercise which was the first in the country and Africa, was successfully conducted on a 27-year-old sickle cell patient.
ThisDay Live tells us that the Head of Hematology of the hospital, Dr. Godwin Bazuaye, who led the operation, stated that about three per cent of the Nigerian population suffers from sickle cell anaemia and stated that this was the highest in the world
DrBazuaye added that the procedure involved the exchange of five litres of blood in the young man’s cells and said that the exercise only took two hours to carry out. He also encouraged Nigerians to donate blood as the cost of procuring blood for the operation was a major factor in the overall cost of the operation.