By Naomi Sharang
The Senator representing Kaduna South Senatorial District, Sen. Sunday Katung, has said that the proposed Sickle Cell Disorder Research and Therapy Centres would gulp N4.7 billion when established.
Katung who sponsored the bill which has scaled second reading in the Senate, made this known in an interview with newsmen in Abuja on Wednesday.
He said: “In a typical bill of this nature, there’s a cost element attached to the bill. But that’s for the federal government that is going to set up this institution. So there’s a cost element attached.
“The total cost to set up the centres in the first instance is N4.7 billion,” he said.
On the cost effectiveness of setting up a centre in each geo-political zone, Katung said the suggestion of some of the senators during the debate on the bill would be considered during the public hearing.
“If you listened to the contributions made by senators, Sen. Natasha in particular was of the view that we could attach each of these centres to a teaching hospital in the zone.
“So all those things are in the offing. We will look at everything during the public hearing to see which is most cost-effective for the country. So everything is possible during the public hearing,” he said.
Katung said that the bill was a major step towards addressing Nigeria’s heavy burden of sickle cell disorder (SCD).
He said it was aimed to create institutional and legal frameworks for the establishment, management and operation of centres.
“These centres will be dedicated to the diagnosis, treatment and research of the disease which continues to claim thousands of lives annually”.
He said that the motivation for sponsoring the legislation stemmed from a deeply personal experience more than two decades ago when he witnessed the agony of a family grappling with the illness.
“I witnessed a situation where a child had just come back from hospital; after a crisis, the parents were contemplating whether to take him back and they were saying okay we have not paid the last bill.
“If we go back, they are not going to take him and the child overheard them and said mom, dad please allow me to die so that you can rest and I too will rest,” Katung recalled with emotion.
“That statement has stayed with me for 25 years. I promised myself that if I ever had the opportunity, I would bring this issue to public attention. That is why I introduced this bill.”
He said that the proposed legislation sought to establish research and therapy centres that would, in the first phase, operate in the six geo-political zones, before eventual expansion to every local government area in the country.
“We discovered that out of more than 300, 000 children that die before the age of five on account of this disease, 150,000
come from Nigeria.
“So Nigeria is the second largest carrier of this disease in the world and in Africa, we are first.
“This means there are so many people who are down with this disorder and because of lack of sufficient treatment or knowledge they are unable to get proper care.
“I know the treatment is quite expensive. So with this bill, it will bring treatment closer to the people.
“It will also help create awareness on people not to marry people that are potential carriers because it would be like expanding the scope of people who have the disease.
“So apart from creating these research centres, there is also the possibility of getting a cure because it is a black man’s disease from what we have come to understand.
“There was once a promising effort led by a late professor at the Pharmacology Centre, but it stalled after his death. This bill will help revive such research efforts,”he said.”(NAN)
Edited by Francis Onyeukwu
