In Nigeria, the average child with sickle cell disease is not diagnosed until they are nearly four years old. For those four years, they are unprotected — at risk of stroke, organ damage, and infection that simple medicines could prevent. The medicines and care already exist. What has been missing is the system to deliver them.
Reach one. Restore all.
Voices from the initiative
HEMA-Global was launched on World Sickle Cell Day 2026 by RHIEOS Ventures and Sickle Cell Foundation Nigeria. Here are the founding voices of the initiative.
Why sickle cell disease is a strategic access priority — and what HEMA-Global is building to address it.
Forty years of working to ensure people with SCD don't just survive — they thrive. What this initiative changes.
The burden on families
A pain crisis becomes a family financial crisis. Lost wages. Hospital bills. Children pulled from school. Because most health systems across Africa offer little or no insurance coverage for SCD, families bear almost the entire cost themselves.
Median monthly economic burden per SCD patient in Nigeria. Of this, outpatient costs account for approximately 88% of the total. All socioeconomic groups suffer catastrophic expenditure, with the poorest quartile worst affected.
Amarachukwu et al., PLOS ONE, 2022 (DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0272491)
Children with SCD miss 20 to 40 school days each year to pain crises and hospitalisation. Education interrupted. Futures deferred. The disease robs not just health but opportunity.
WHO Africa, 2023
41% of young Nigerians with SCD aged 15–24 are not in education, employment, or training. Applied to an estimated 900,000 young people living with the disease in that age group, this represents approximately 370,000 people locked out of economic and educational life — an indicative annual economic and wellbeing loss of approximately USD 1.7 billion.* The disease robs not just health but futures.
Osagie et al., 2022; UN World Population Prospects, 2022; Amarachukwu et al., PLOS ONE, 2022. *Derived estimate: 370,000 × $385/month × 12. All inputs carry uncertainty ranges; figure is illustrative.
Eight years of working proof
"For over forty years, the Sickle Cell Foundation Nigeria has worked so that people living with sickle cell disorder do not just survive — they 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 the financing to sustain both, we can reach the patients who are still invisible to the health system — and make sure they are invisible no longer."Dr. Annette Akinsete
"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."Larry Ajuwon
Reach One for SCD
The campaign asks every person and organisation — patients, families, clinicians, researchers, diaspora networks, businesses and institutions — to take one clear action that helps sickle cell care reach further. Choose yours.
Learn one fact about sickle cell disease, genotype, early diagnosis or care. Then share it.
Share one clear message with a family, school, faith group, workplace or community.
Encourage one person or family to understand their screening and diagnosis options.
Support stigma-free genetic counselling and informed choices for individuals and families.
Help link one person to appropriate clinical care, follow-up and long-term support.
Support better patient registries so care needs, outcomes and gaps are visible to those who can act on them.
Give time, voice, expertise or community help to patients, caregivers and frontline care teams.
Organisations and institutions: explore how your capabilities align with the initiative's financing and care goals.
Press & resources
The HEMA-Global and Reach One for SCD launch press release is available on the SCFN and RHIEOS Ventures websites. For media enquiries, contact the teams directly.
Partners
Nigeria's foremost institution for SCD advocacy, prevention, genetic counselling, diagnosis, care, research and registry work. Nigeria anchor partner for Reach One for SCD and HEMA-Global. Over four decades of service to patients and families.
Visit sicklecellfoundation.com →A health access and investment firm building data-driven, sustainable health systems in Africa. Partner to SCFN on SCD registry infrastructure since 2018. HEMA-Global is an Africa-focused, Nigeria-anchored access and financing initiative for sickle cell disease and blood health.
Visit rhieosventures.com →Use your voice, your network, your knowledge or your organisation to help sickle cell care reach further.
I Want to Act →Or contact us at info@rhieosventures.co.uk