Medic Explains Circumcision Deaths

By Standard Reporter
Nairobi

Ninety per cent of youths who die after undergoing circumcision suffer from undetected bleeding disorders, the chairman of Kenya Haemophilia Association, Dr Walter Mwanda, has announced.

Mwanda said these children suffer from haemophilia and die due to lack of early detection of the condition which leads to their bleeding to death.

He was speaking during a training for medical practitioners involved in haemophilic-related disorders lectured by the World Federation of Haemophilia(WFH),Kenya Haemophilic Association and Kenyatta National Hospital. WFH Vice-President, Mr Paul Giangrande said Africa needed to know the implications of having a child with the disorder and what medics have to do for its treatment and survival.

Mwanda said over the past four decades haemophilia, uncomplicated by inhibitor development, has become a condition that is treatable with clotting factor concentrates.

He further noted the treatment with factor concentrates resulted into a normal life expectancy preventing crippling arthritis, muscle atrophy amongst other diseases. The diseases, he noted, have in the past resulted in many people becoming severely disabled by early adult life.