Thousands of Chinese haemophilia suffers may be dying prematurely due to lack of treatment for the disease in the country, the head of the Irish Haemophilia Society, Mr Brian O'Mahony, has said.
Mr O'Mahony, who is also president of the World Federation of Haemophiliacs, is travelling to China this weekend on a fact-finding mission to see how services for haemophiliacs could be improved.
He told The Irish Times that an estimated 130,000 people in China have haemophilia. This is based on figures which show that one in 10,000 people in the world suffer from the blood disorder, regardless of race or region.
Mr O'Mahony arrives in China on Sunday and will visit Shanghai, Guangzhou and Tianjin. He will be accompanied by Dr Bruce Evatt, vice-president of the WFH developing-world programme and Ms Claudia Black, the WFH programme director.
He said in a country like China there is no national haemophilia programme and the likelihood is that people are surviving only until they are around 19 years of age. "Survival can be increased by introducing a basic treatment programme."
There are already haemophilia-treatment links between Calgery in Canada and Tianjin, with plans to establish twinning links next week between Ottowa and Guangzo. Mr O'Mahony said: "Our basic aim is to help countries help themselves. We gather data from countries all over the world. Our visit to China will be an assessment visit. We will meet the major players on their own turf and talk to them and see what we can do to help."