Blog

Celebrating 50 years of Rh prevention; successes and failures

Today at FIGO World Congress in Rio de Janiero Gerard H.A.Visser and Gian Carlo Di Renzo presented the FIGO position paper: The continuing burden of Rh disease, 50 years after the introduction of anti-D globulin  on behalf of FIGO’s Safe Motherhood and Newborn Health Committee.

Hemolytic Disease is often fatal for the fetus or newborn and can cause late miscarriage, stillbirth, early post-natal death and life-long disabilities in surviving babies.

Fifty years ago, the discovery of Anti-D Immunoglobulins was a medical breakthrough that resulted in a dramatic reduction in the incidence of HDFN in many parts of the world.

Rhesus factor: Hundreds ‘walk for life’

TRAFFIC stood still for them as they walked from Isheri-Osun to Ikotun on Igando-Ikotun Local Council Development Area (LCDA) of Lagos State on Saturday to create awareness about the dangers of rhesus negative.

About 84 per cent of the human population with rhesus factor are said to be rhesus positive and the 16 per cent without are said to be rhesus negative.

It is necessary to determine if a person is rhesus positive or negative before a blood transfusion.

The crowd was attracted by the music being played from a mobile van by a Disc Jockey (DJ) accompanied by people in branded shirts and caps.

RhoGAM at 50: A Columbia Drug Still Saving Lives of Newborns

RhoGAM, a drug developed in the 1960s by Columbia University physicians, prevents one of the most severe and devastating diseases affecting fetuses and newborn babies and is still in use today

You’d be forgiven for having never heard of Rh disease. The disease has essentially been eradicated in high-income countries. But for centuries until the late 1960s, the disease was one of the most severe and devastating conditions for newborns. In the United States, it killed approximately 10,000 newborns a year and caused brain damage in many more.

Although the factors that cause Rh disease are still present,

She was ‘the woman who loses all the babies.’ Then she learned what might have saved them

LAGOS, Nigeria—In this sprawling city, a strip of concrete homes sits along the edge of one of Lagos’s largest slums. It is just one of many such streets in the West African megacity, and tricky for outsiders to find; but for a few Nigerian naira, a local motorbike taxi will deliver you to Amodu St.

Follow the smoke of the grilled-corn vendor and there is a squat compound with a corrugated metal roof, the home of a 30-something woman with a warm smile and animated gesticulations. Her name is Florence Onwuasoanya. But on Amodu,

‘Ignorance cause of increase in Rhesus factor’

No fewer than 34 million women are Rhesus Negative, a Rhesus solution campaigner, Mrs Funmilayo Banire, has said.

This, she said, accounted for the high rate of still births and loss of babies due to Rhesus incompatibility. Rhesus negative is the absence of the factor of the surface of the red blood cells of some people. About 16% of the human population is said to be Rhesus negative.

Rhesus incompatibility, Mrs Banire, founder of Rhesus Solution Initiative (RSI), said had no link with witchcraft or abiku

Speaking at a seminar to mark RSI’s10th anniversary in Lagos.