The cumulative outcomes of a long time of labor and advances in drugs are mirrored within the elevated survival of thalassaemia sufferers, Well being Minister Michalis Damianos mentioned on Tuesday.
“Cyprus has maybe the very best common [survival] age on the planet together with the excessive charges {of professional} rehabilitation and social integration,” he mentioned at a overview of the Nationwide Thalassemia Committee’s work in 2024.
Cyprus had made huge systematic and well-coordinated efforts to deal with the illness as early because the Sixties and Nineteen Seventies, the minister mentioned.
Nevertheless, he added the challenges of correctly managing thalassemia, as with many different continual illnesses, had been continually evolving.
In a altering setting with the rising burden of varied different continual illnesses, the introduction of recent medication and superior, high-cost therapies, in addition to many different elements, well being techniques are beneath vital stress to maintain modernising, he mentioned.
“As a state, it’s our crucial obligation to be vigilant and to do the fitting factor to continually enhance the companies we offer our continual sufferers,” he added.
For that reason, he mentioned, the first goal of the Nationwide Thalassemia Committee was the event of a structured and clearly outlined nationwide technique for thalassemia and different blood problems reminiscent of sickle cell anaemia which can be comparatively new to Cyprus.
The ministry has additionally put a deal with upgrading blood banks based mostly on the present speedy scientific progress within the area of genetic illnesses, new and revised European insurance policies and laws regarding blood and substances of human origin, medicines, well being applied sciences and well being knowledge.
“Persistent, and specifically genetic, hereditary illnesses, require a particular, multidisciplinary method and this committee, consisting of all related our bodies and companions concerned within the management and administration of those illnesses, constitutes a helpful software,” he mentioned.
