There is substantial evidence that the prevalence of Sickle Cell characteristics in SubSaharan Africa is a direct and evolutionary response to Malaria’s prevalence across the continent. https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1804388115
Those with Sickle Cell traits have been able to avoid death from malaria due to the reduced oxygenation of red blood cells due to this genetic mutation.
While intervention in Sickle Cell Anemic patients is important, attempts to “cure” sickle cell characteristics could have the unexpected consequence of increasing deaths from Malaria by “curing” this evolutionary benefit of this characteristic in Malarian areas.
As I understand it, you want to screen out people with two copies of the allele (i.e. who are at risk for sickle cell disease) but not people who have one copy (i.e. people who aren’t at risk but still have resistance to malaria). So this doesn’t really seem like a problem to me? I.e. if you screen 100% of people, you can eradicate sickle cell disease, but people will still have and pass on the allele that gives malaria resistance.
There is substantial evidence that the prevalence of Sickle Cell characteristics in SubSaharan Africa is a direct and evolutionary response to Malaria’s prevalence across the continent. https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1804388115
Those with Sickle Cell traits have been able to avoid death from malaria due to the reduced oxygenation of red blood cells due to this genetic mutation.
While intervention in Sickle Cell Anemic patients is important, attempts to “cure” sickle cell characteristics could have the unexpected consequence of increasing deaths from Malaria by “curing” this evolutionary benefit of this characteristic in Malarian areas.
As I understand it, you want to screen out people with two copies of the allele (i.e. who are at risk for sickle cell disease) but not people who have one copy (i.e. people who aren’t at risk but still have resistance to malaria). So this doesn’t really seem like a problem to me? I.e. if you screen 100% of people, you can eradicate sickle cell disease, but people will still have and pass on the allele that gives malaria resistance.