FG to tackle sickle-cell anaemia through nutrition —Minister

THE Federal Government has revealed that another effective means of tackling sickle-cell, as discovered in recent research, is use of nutrition to cure the hereditary disease.

Minister of Science and Technology, Dr. Ogbonnaya Onu, disclosed this in his office in Abuja, when he received the executive members of the Enugu Chambers of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture (ECCIMA), led by their president, Reverend Ugochukwu Chime, who paid him a courtesy visit.

He explained that while the world was trying to approach the disease through the drugs, his ministry has discovered another angle through research by using nutrition.

Onu, said  his ministry was already planning to organise Technology and Innovation Expo in April, where the Federal Government would showcase to the world, especially the health sector, its research findings towards curing sickle-cell anaemia in Nigeria.

The minister said his ministry was determined to redirect the nation with a view to gaining self-confidence that it could produce all the products that are being imported into the country, adding that  Nigeria had no reason to be importing products to the country.

He said: “We are determined to redirect our Nation, so that we will gain that self-confidence, and know that yes all these things we are doing in the past depending on others that we have the capacity in our country to use science and technology to do them.

“This Technology and Innovation Expo which will be coming up in April, we will let Nigerians know that we have innovation that will help in health sector.

“We are already sure that most people in the world are trying to approach sickle-cell anaemia from drugs, getting the right drugs, but we in the Federal Ministry of Science and Technology are approaching it from another angle using nutrition.

“It is just as you eat, what you eat, it is almost like a drug and once you use such nutrition, if you have sickle-cell anaemia, you will never be in crisis. So, it is a wonderful approach that you will not depend on drugs. You will take your normal meals and you are healthy and this is coming out of research and innovation.”

The minister maintained that with abundant endowment of natural resources, Nigeria has all it takes to produce its citizenry`s needs and even exports to the rest of the world.

“Nigeria is now ready to join the rest of the world in the area of innovation. We believe that our forefathers were very creative, very innovative but over the past few centuries, we have lagged behind. We didn’t attach so much importance to science and technology to develop of our country, that is why we are having all sort of problems we are having today,” he lamented.