For the millions of Nigerians living with sickle cell disease, the cure that once required an expensive and exhausting journey to India, the United Kingdom, or the United States is now available at home.
The Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH), in partnership with the Sickle Cell Foundation Nigeria (SCFN), has launched a full Bone Marrow Transplant (BMT) programme making Nigeria one of the few countries in sub-Saharan Africa to offer this life-saving procedure locally. The programme reached a landmark milestone in September 2024, when its medical team successfully performed the first set of indigenous bone marrow transplants on both paediatric and adult sickle cell patients admitted to the hospital in the last week of August.
Nigeria carries the heaviest burden of sickle cell disease of any country in the world. The condition, a genetic blood disorder, causes red blood cells to become rigid and sickle-shaped, leading to severe pain crises, organ damage, and a significantly shortened lifespan. For decades, bone marrow transplantation — in which a patient’s faulty blood-producing cells are replaced with healthy stem cells from a compatible donor — has been recognised globally as the only established permanent cure for the disease. But for most Nigerian families, the cost of seeking it abroad, estimated at between $500,000 and $800,000, placed it far out of reach.
The SCFN-LUTH programme now offers the procedure locally at an estimated cost of between $15,000 and $22,000, made possible through donor support and locally built infrastructure a fraction of what it costs abroad.
The groundwork for this breakthrough was laid years in advance. As early as 2019, LUTH and SCFN established a post-transplant clinic — the first of its kind in sub-Saharan Africa — to care for Nigerians who had undergone transplants overseas and returned home with no local follow-up support. The programme also built a Stem Cell Processing Laboratory, the first in all of West Africa.
The clinical team behind the programme is both local and internationally supported. Professor Adetola Kassim of Vanderbilt University Medical Center has guided the programme since 2018, while Professor Josu de la Fuente of Imperial College London joined as a resource person in 2022, particularly to support the paediatric aspects.
A significant advancement in the programme is the adoption of haploidentical (half-matched) transplants. Previously, patients required a perfectly matched sibling donor to be eligible. The ability to use half-matched donors — including parents or non-identical siblings — substantially widens the pool of patients who can benefit.
The programme reports an approximate 85 to 90 percent success rate for eligible patients, particularly children with matched sibling donors. Patients first undergo a preparatory regimen of exchange blood transfusions, chemotherapy, and anti-infective treatment before the actual infusion of harvested stem cells. Close medical monitoring follows for approximately 12 months after transplantation.
LUTH’s Chief Medical Director, Professor Wasiu Lanre Adeyemo, described the development as a turning point not just for the hospital but for Nigerian healthcare as a whole. The Federal Ministry of Health has also acknowledged the programme as a critical step in curbing the country’s costly dependence on medical tourism.
Families and patients seeking more information can reach the SCFN-LUTH Bone Marrow Transplant Centre located at the Olikoye Ransome-Kuti Children Emergency Centre within LUTH, Lagos via WhatsApp on 08108188085, by phone on 08135190029.
For the countless Nigerians who have lived under the shadow of sickle cell disease, the message from LUTH is now unambiguous: the cure is no longer a distant hope. It is here.
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