Ahmedabad: When Brijesh Modi, now 54, was diagnosed with a condition called haemophilia in the early 1980s, his family was puzzled. As a child, Modi frequently developed swelling, and his family knew that his injuries did not heal naturally.
“In the past 40 years, there has been a rise in awareness about the condition, but many still suffer due to a lack of diagnosis,” said Modi, who is the vice-president of Hemophilia Society Ahmedabad Chapter (HASC).
HASC on Sunday organised an awareness initiative along with testing of the persons living with the condition to identify factors. M A Husseni, president of the HASC, said that there are 13 blood clotting factors. “Some people are born without some of these factors. Thus, when they bleed internally or externally, it does not coagulate,” he said. According to rough estimates, Gujarat has close to 3,000 persons with haemophilia. tnn