JEDDAH, 9 June 2006 — Health experts in the Kingdom are seeking approval for a revolutionary new form of medicine to treat thalassemia, a severe form of the painful and crippling lifelong sickle cell disease.
Saudi Arabia has one of the highest percentages of people in the world who either suffer from sickle cell disease or carry the sickle cell trait, in some regions up to 30 percent of the population. The new drug, which is called Exjade, has been developed by the pharmaceutical company Novartis and is a tablet that can be dissolved in water and taken once a day. Exjade is an easier alternative to commonly used medicines like Desferal.
Blood specialist Dr. Abdullah Al-Jefri from the King Faisal Specialist Hospital (KFSH) and Research Center in Riyadh said, “Thalassemia places enormous psychological and emotional burden on patients and their families. The new medication will improve the quality of life of sufferers and increase their chances of survival.” Al-Jefri said the drug was easy to take and especially easy for children as young as two to use. “It is estimated that the carrier rate of the thalassemia trait is around 3.2 percent in Saudi Arabia and hundreds of affected patients are born each year,” he said.
According to experts, medicines such as Desferal can cause a large build-up of iron and is infused into patients through a needle attached to a small battery-operated pump that is worn under the skin of the stomach or legs. Patients need to be infused with the drug for up to 12 hours, five to seven times a week.
Researchers headed by Al-Jefri have conducted tests on 20 patients of various ages using Exjade at the KFSH. “We did careful monitoring and testing and compared the results at the beginning of the trial and now a year later. The amount of iron dropped from the body significantly, an average of half and in some patients by 80 percent,” Al-Jefri told Arab News.
The tests concluded the drug to be safe. Researchers say they have not observed any significant complications except for a few minor side effects. The US Food and Drug Administration and several other authorities have approved Exjade for usage in the US and across the globe. Medical experts hope the drug will soon be approved in Saudi Arabia as well.
Authorities in the Kingdom have previously recognized the need to address the root causes of the disease and have placed measures to tackle its spread. One such initiative that came into effect two years ago is the royal decree calling for Saudis to have blood tests before marriage, an opportunity for all parties involved to quickly and accurately identify carriers of the thalassemia trait.
“The mandatory pre-marital blood test is an excellent idea, and has helped us greatly in our attempts to stem the spread of thalassemia and other blood diseases – what we need now is to look seriously at chronic care therapies available to thalassemia sufferers and improve on those as quickly as possible,” said Al-Jefri.
