Monika Asnani — addressing the unmet needs of sickle cell disease

Abstract

Hesitant about limiting the scope of her practice to a single chronic disease, Monika Asnani was initially reluctant to join the Sickle Cell Unit (SCU) at the University of the West Indies (UWI, Kingston, Jamaica). But soon after joining the SCU as a medical officer in 2003, she began to appreciate the unit's deep impact in Jamaica, where sickle cell disease is the most common genetic disorder (1 in every 150 people is born with the condition and 10% of the population carries the sickle cell trait). The only comprehensive centre in the anglophone Caribbean, the SCU treats 3000 patients each year whose ages range from infancy to the 80s. Asnani—who received her MBBS, MSC, DM, and PhD degrees from The University of West Indies—became the SCU's Director in August 2021.