Current Diagnosis of Bleeding Disorders in Lower Income Countries

Abstract

There have been considerable advances in diagnosing and treating bleeding disorders. But the scenario remains dismal in resource-constrained settings in low and lower-middle-income countries (LMICs). Seventy-five percent of the patients with inherited bleeding disorders do not get diagnosed in LMICs. In resource-constrained settings, infectious disease and malignancies take the major focus. Bleeding disorders do not get prioritised in LMICs, and this leads to underdiagnoses and suboptimal treatment. There are various challenges like financial status, inadequacy of health care infrastructure, lack of patient registry and lack of awareness across medical staff, general population and government stakeholders. The lack of skilled laboratory personnel and laboratory infrastructure for optimal bleeding disorder diagnosis adds on to the problem. World Federation of Hemophilia (WFH) has been at the forefront in developing strategies to overcome some of these inadequacies; however, more active participation of the stakeholders including patients, medical professionals and policy makers is the need of the hour. This review highlights the different challenges in LMICs in diagnosing bleeding disorders, the gap between high-income countries and LMICs and the possible strategies in closing the gap.

Keywords: LMIC; WFH; bleeding disorders; haemophilia.