In an attempt to increase awareness of thrombosis in Nigeria, medical experts and stakeholders say weak approaches may turn preventable conditions into silent killers.
Sanofi, a multinational pharmaceutical company, has brought together a unique set of experts and stakeholders to brainstorm on ways to break the widespread ignorance of the disease, despite it affecting one in four people globally and remaining a leading cause of mortality in the world.
Currently in Nigeria, no data exist on its prevalence. However, the disease is largely unknown, even among doctors, with some misdiagnosing wrongly.
“Thrombosis have been identified as one of the leading causes of death, especially blood clot related death, and pregnancy increases the rate of this condition,” Omolade Awodu, professor of Haematology, School of Medicine, University of Benin, said.
Awodu, while speaking on the overview of Venous thromboembolism (VTE) disease in Nigeria, how hospitals can reduce VTE risk in their hospitals, said VTE was also the number one cause of preventable deaths in hospitals and the prevalence was increasing in Nigeria.
“The burden in medically ill patients also increases and acutely ill medical patients are the most vulnerable. Hospital VTE committee should set up awareness meeting and update training,” she said.
Awodu urged healthcare practitioners and also patients on the need to identify the risk factors to prevent fatality, especially as most VTE cases became fatal even before they had been diagnosed.
Venous thromboembolism VTE can be described as blood clots occurring as deep vein thrombosis pulmonary embolism, or both, it is an important and growing public health issue. It claims more lives than AIDS, breast and prostate cancer, and motor vehicle crashes combined. The main concern is that many people are not aware of this condition.
“VTE also has its social economic burden, as patients would need to spend more days in the hospital resulting to extra treatment cost and reduction in hospital bed space available for other ill patients,” Folake Odediran, general manager and country chairman, Sanofi Nigeria-Ghana, said.
Odediran said Sanofi as a health journey partner had engaged with various partners and stakeholders to identify areas of support to address VTE challenge, noting, “Our areas of support are focused on driving VTE awareness, capacity building, partnership with health care association and providing innovative treatment and prophylaxis options.”
Sanofi has introduced “New Clexane”, a brand of Enoxaparin sodium, 20mg, 60mg and 80mg Stock Keeping Units (SKUs) into the Nigerian market for the treatment of Venous Thromboembolism (VTE) in Lagos, she said.
Clexane dosing, treatment cost and VTE management are more convenient in patients with cases of severe renal impairment, underweight, obesity, being treated with DVT/Pulmonary Embolism (PE) and high risk gynecological surgery patients.
The launch of Clexane doses of 20mg, 60mg and 80mg into the market is to address the unmet medical needs to the treatment and prevention of thrombosis.
“Some of the insights into unmet medical needs based on our interactions with stakeholders in the market of VTE include cost, dose optimisation in weight-based VTE management and in special populations,” she said.
