Therapy of hemoglobinopathies: update

Every year, about 300,000 children are born affected by hemoglobinopathies including 30% with Thalassemia syndromes and 70% with sickle cell disease. 50,000 to 100,000 children die annually for Thalassemia. These numbers represent 0.5-0.9% of all deaths in low-income countries and constitute 3.4% of all deaths occurring under the age of 5 years. Thalassemia gene is more frequent than HbS gene and because HbS gene is particularly frequent in certain regions this means that the number of people born with SCD is higher of newborns with Thalassemia...