For over a year, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) teams in Lebanon have been treating Syrian refugee children for thalassemia. A genetic blood disorder, in its acute forms thalassemia requires intensive treatment that MSF provides in a pediatric hospital in the city of Zahle in the Bekaa Valley.
Thalassemia is caused by an alteration in the genes required to synthesize hemoglobin. The greater the number of altered genes, the more severe the disease. Thalassemia is more common in the Middle East, Asia, Africa, and across the Mediterranean region. Patients left untreated can have considerably shorter life expectancy.
In severe cases, regular blood transfusions are needed to compensate for the lack of hemoglobin. “But there’s a complication with frequent transfusions,” says Dr. Amber Alayyan, medical manager of MSF programs in Lebanon. “These can cause iron overload, which can result in heart or liver disease. This is why thalassemia patients need iron chelators to lower iron levels in the body.”
MSF provides comprehensive care for children suffering from thalassemia in the pediatric department of Elias Haraoui hospital, starting with diagnosis. Because the disease is hereditary, parents are often aware their children are affected, so it just takes a blood test to confirm the diagnosis. In other cases, when a child is pale, weak, and shows signs of anemia, blood tests are carried out to establish the cause, and hemoglobin electrophoresis confirms whether or not it is thalassemia.
