Health: an application helps people with sickle cell disease – Franceinfo

Sickle cell disease is a genetic disease. A child with this disease can die before the age of five if it is not taken care of quickly. To help them, Meryem Ait Zerbane, Laetitia Defoi and Anouchka Kponou, three friends, have created the free Drepacare application. When doing their research on the disease, they realized that there was “a lack of digital tools”, explains Laetitia Defoi, herself affected by the disease.

A patient may experience seizures related to sickle cell anemia. With Drepacare, there are features that allow you to anticipate complications. For example, if he regularly complains of hip problems, this will give the caregiver guidance when deciding what to do to help the sick person. For example, hip pain, limping, “Normally a doctor will immediately think of osteonecrosis. So he would have given me an X-ray, an MRI straight away and I wouldn’t have reached the last stage in fact, and I wouldn’t have maybe had this hip replacement. ‘would not have had to undergo that, I would not have done four years in a wheelchair “, says Laetitia Defoi.

The creators of the application encourage the generalization of screening in France. They also fight against certain received ideas. “A common misconception is that sickle cell disease only affects black people, and it doesn’t. Whether you are black, white, brown or khaki, we can all have sickle cell disease.”, recalls Anouchka Kponou.