RHIEOS Ventures and Sickle Cell Foundation Nigeria Announce Partnership on HEMA-Global to Improve Sickle Cell Access, Care, and Financing in Africa

LAGOS / LONDON, 19 June 2026 — In Nigeria and across Africa, a child is born with sickle cell disease roughly every few minutes. Yet most are diagnosed only when a serious crisis strikes, if at all. The medicines and care that could reduce pain, prevent complications, and extend life already exist.

Today, on World Sickle Cell Day, RHIEOS Ventures and the Sickle Cell Foundation Nigeria announce their collaboration on HEMA-Global: an Africa-focused access and financing initiative being developed to help connect sickle cell patients to earlier diagnosis, essential medicines, coordinated care, data, and sustainable support systems. The launch also opens Reach One for SCD, a public awareness and mobilisation campaign asking individuals and organisations to take one clear action so care can reach further. Reach one. Restore all.

The burden on families — and on Africa

Across Africa, the cost of sickle cell disease falls first — and hardest — on the family. A pain crisis becomes a family financial crisis. A hospital visit means lost wages, missed school, disrupted siblings, and depleted savings. Because most health systems across Africa offer little or no insurance coverage for SCD, families bear almost the entire cost themselves.

Multiply this across a continent of 8.85 million children living with SCD (Lancet Child & Adolescent Health, 2026), and the scale becomes stark. The Economist Intelligence Unit estimates the total cost of sickle cell disease across sub-Saharan Africa at USD 9.1 billion a year, rising to USD 10.2 billion by 2030. The vast majority is borne by households, not governments or health systems. This is the scale of the burden. It is also the scale of the opportunity: the cost of building a functioning system is a fraction of the cost of continuing without one.

What HEMA-Global does

HEMA-Global uses sickle cell disease as an anchor for strengthening practical access systems in high-burden African settings, beginning with Nigeria. It focuses on capabilities that can strengthen blood health, chronic care, and maternal and child health: early screening, reliable medicines, connected data, trained health workers, clear referral pathways, and sustainable financing. Build these capabilities for sickle cell, and they can serve far more than sickle cell. This is the strategic logic of the initiative.

The initiative will support practical action across three connected areas:

Education, counselling, training, and registration — public awareness, genotype education, genetic counselling, patient and caregiver education, health-worker and community training, mental-health support, and patient registration.

Basic care and protection — newborn and child screening, basic care and support, nutrition, follow-up, access to essential medicines and services, and better links to health financing and insurance.

Complications, research, and better care pathways — improved referral systems, management of complications, blood and laboratory readiness, real-world evidence, specialist care pathways, and preparation for more advanced forms of care when health systems are ready.

HEMA-Global does not replace national programmes or existing institutions. It is being developed as a policy, access, and financing framework that can support alignment, connect existing capabilities, mobilise resources, and help turn awareness into measurable improvements in screening, medicines, registration, referral, care coordination, and family support. As a first concrete step, HEMA-Global will begin raising funds to support SCFN in expanding newborn screening and patient follow-up, with an ambition of growing the Sickle Cell Disorder Registry Nigeria from its current 1,915 patients to 5,000 registered patients within the next three to five years, alongside training of genetic counsellors and a comprehensive cohort study linked to the registry's continued development. Where relevant, the initiative will seek alignment with the Africa CDC Continental Plan on Sickle Cell Disease, validated by 50 African Union Member States in Kampala in May 2026, and with participating countries' own health priorities. Progress, learning, and outcomes will be reported through appropriate public updates and partner reporting as the initiative develops.

Seven years of working proof

HEMA-Global is built on a partnership that has already demonstrated what coordinated, data-driven SCD infrastructure can do. RHIEOS Ventures and SCFN signed their first MoU in 2018 and launched the Sickle Cell Disorder Registry Nigeria (SCDRN) in 2019. The registry's published data show what that infrastructure has revealed — and what it is now changing.

The mean age at first diagnosis in the registry cohort is 45 months — nearly four years old. That is the gap newborn screening closes: a child diagnosed on day one can begin protective medicines immediately; a child diagnosed at four has already spent years at risk of stroke, infection, and organ damage. The registry has also identified that 76% of enrolled patients have been hospitalised and that TCD screening — a simple, non-invasive test — is detecting children at high or conditional stroke risk who would otherwise be invisible to the health system. These are children who can now be protected.

With over 1,915 patients now registered (as of the latest internal data extract; the published 2024 SCDRN Summary Data Report covers 1,373 patients), SCDRN is already informing clinical protocols, referral decisions, and the design of care pathways for one of the world's highest-burden SCD populations. Nigeria anchors the approach. The model is designed to be shared, adapted, and scaled where partners and country priorities support it.

"For over thirty years, the Sickle Cell Foundation Nigeria has worked so that people living with sickle cell disorder can survive and thrive. HEMA-Global gives us a framework to take that change further, state by state across Nigeria and beyond. With better screening, a stronger registry and sustainable access to financing, we will have more resources to improve the lives of those living with SCD — so they can contribute meaningfully to their communities." — Dr. Annette Akinsete, CEO / National Director, Sickle Cell Foundation Nigeria

"Sickle cell disease in Africa is a strategic access priority because it touches blood health, chronic care, and maternal and child health at once. As the Yorùbá saying reminds us — Tó bá dé ẹ̀jẹ̀, kò sí ẹni tí ó jìnnà — when it comes to blood, no one is far away. By reducing barriers to care, we can improve lives, support families, and strengthen our shared future." — Larry Ajuwon, Founder, RHIEOS Ventures

Reach One for SCD

Reach One for SCD is the public campaign face of HEMA-Global. It asks every person and organisation — patients, families, clinicians, researchers, community groups, African philanthropic partners, diaspora networks, businesses, and institutions — to take one clear action that helps care reach further:

Learn one. Tell one. Screen one. Counsel one. Register one. Support one. Restore all.

The campaign opens today at reachoneforscd.org. Reach One for SCD is the start of a sustained, accountable effort. As the initiative develops, RHIEOS Ventures and SCFN intend to share updates on participation, learning, and outcomes through appropriate public communications and partner reporting. The HEMA-Global Health Financing Challenge — a structured call for African philanthropic, diaspora, private-sector, and institutional partners to co-invest in the initiative's first funding round — is expected to be announced in Q4 2026. Diaspora-linked remittance giving may become one catalytic source of support, alongside grants, match-funding, and community-based financing pathways.

Media contacts

Websites: sicklecellfoundation.com · reachoneforscd.org · rhieosventures.com