History

Sickle cell has been known to the people of Africa for many years. Many tribes gave the disease different names.

Ga tribe: chwechweechwe
Faute tribe: nwiiwii
Ewe tribe: nuidudui
Twi tribe: ahotutuo

Sickle cell disease went unreported in African medical literature until the 1870s. The symptoms were very similar to those of other tropical diseases in Africa and blood was not usually examined. Children born with sickle cell disease usually died in infancy and were typically not seen by a doctor. Most of the earliest published reports of the disease involved black patients living in the US. This first sickle cell patient came to Chicago in 1904 to study dentistry in one of the best schools of the country and was likely the only black student there. He was a wealthy man from the West Indies; and, repeated hospitalizations for his illness. Studies have shown that African Americans, who have lived in malaria-free areas for as long as ten generations, have lower sickle cell gene frequencies than Africans and the frequencies have dropped more than those of other, less harmful African genes.