Press

april 2025

URDFS: Promotion 2025 of the 7th session of the IUD on Sickle Cell Disease - MESRI

"This 19th of April, the Université Rose Dieng France-Sénégal (URDFS) had the honour to host the closing ceremony of the 2025 promotion of the international IUD (Inter-University Diploma) on sickle cell disease, a training program sponsored by Drep.Afrique, in partnership with the Université Paris Cité and the Université Rose-Dieng FS.

For two weeks, 43 doctors and caregivers from 11 African countries (Cameroon, Niger, Togo, Senegal, Benin, Congo, Guinea, Burkina Faso, DR Congo, Gabon, Mali) enriched their knowledge under the direction of Pr DIALLO and Pr ARLET."

URDFS: Promotion 2025 of the 7th session of the IUD on Sickle Cell Disease - MESRI

Qu’est-ce qui fait l’originalité de Drep.Afrique ?

Robert Hue- "La spécificité de l’ONG Drep.Afrique est la symbiose entre le politique, le scientifique et la communication, au service d’une démarche humaniste et désintéressée."

Jean-Benoît Arlet - "Si la jeunesse africaine s’empare de cette cause, elle pourra entrainer la communauté des patients français et des politiques dans ce mouvement qui vient d’Afrique mais qui est en réalité un dé mondial."

Globinoscope

april 2025

Sickle cell disease: "There are two big hopes, the marrow transplant and gene therapy" - TV5 Monde

"Sickle-cell disease is by far the most common hereditary disease in sub-Saharan Africa (300,000 cases per year). This genetic anomaly causes the deformation
red blood cells and causes painful attacks and serious medical complications. In France, 600,000 people are estimated to be healthy carriers and about
30,000 patients affected.

Article Pr. Fischer

december 2021

Sickle Cell Disease in Africa: The Challenges of Better Care for Millions of People with Sickle Cell Disease - BBC

"I feel unspeakable and uncalming pain because I have a severe form of the disease. Pain that cannot be described."

This is the testimony of Maguèye Ndiaye, the president of the Senegalese Association to fight sickle cell disease, a hereditary genetic disease that affects the blood.

april 2021

Sickle cell disease is "the world’s first genetic disease," warns Robert Hue - FranceInfo

It’s a constant struggle. You have to fight all the time. On all these great human questions that often pass by opinion, sickle cell disease is a disease which is a mutation of hemoglobin in the blood. Hemoglobin in the blood transfers oxygen to organs. This disease completely mutilates the red blood cell, which blocks the circulation of the blood and it results in attacks of extreme pain.

june 2018

Sickle Cell Disease, a forgotten disease - jeuneafrique

"In this forum, Robert Hue appeals to public opinion to support the fight against sickle cell disease, a disease too often forgotten."

"Since 2009, sickle cell disease has ranked fourth in the WHO (World Health Organization) global public health priorities after cancer, AIDS and malaria for the Africa area. And yet who in public opinion knows it?"

november 2023

Podcast: Sickle Cell Disease: Blood Links - RadioFrance

With Pr Olivier Hermine, member of the scientific council Drep.Afrique, head of the hematology department at the Necker hospital, coordinator of the LabEx on red blood cells and director of a research team on blood diseases at the Imagine institute.

april 2021

Sickle cell disease: "This genetic disease, we do not know it," laments Robert Hue - RTL

"GUEST RTL - Sickle cell disease is a very little known disease in France, because it mainly affects Africa. Today, no treatment exists to cure it, Robert Hue denounces "a problem of taking into account diseases in the world"."

april 2020

Sickle cell disease: "There are two big hopes, the marrow transplant and gene therapy" - TV5 Monde

"Et quand l’entrecroisement de troncs devient trop dense, impossible à démêler, la seule solution pour libérer la rivière est la dynamite. Faut voir les draveurs courir vers la terre ferme, sitôt la mèche allumée.La mémoire a ses raisons que la raison ne connaît pas. Pourquoi est-elle allée chercher ce vieux souvenir lorsque, pour la première fois, j’ai entendu prononcer ce mot étrange, et plutôt inquiétant, de « drépanocytose » ?"

Chapter 'Une sorte d'Embâcle'

april 2020

Sickle cell disease: "There are two big hopes, the marrow transplant and gene therapy" - TV5 Monde

"Robert Hue is a popular figure in French politics, even if he has distanced himself from it for a few years. He becomes national secretary of the French Communist Party in 1994, from which he moves away in 2008. He ended his parliamentary political career in 2017, the year in which he founded the NGO Drep.Afrique to fight against sickle-cell disease."

april 2020

Sickle cell disease: "There are two big hopes, the marrow transplant and gene therapy" - TV5 Monde

Sickle-cell, the most common genetic disease in the world, affects hemoglobin and is manifested by particularly painful seizures. It kills each year, mainly on the African continent, hundreds of thousands of people, especially children. After a rigorous investigation, Robert Hue reveals that the indifference towards this disease is by no means random, but probably reflects one of the most stigmatizing «racial unconscious» against Africa.

may 2023

Health governance and geopolitics of sickle cell disease - la revue du praticien

"Sickle cell disease is the kind of disease that causes excruciating suffering and disorganization in the family and social structure. More than 100 years after its first clinical description, current evidence suggests that its management remains inadequate in many respects, especially in countries where it is most prevalent."

Read the article

may 2023

Health governance and geopolitics of sickle cell disease - la revue du praticien

"Sickle cell disease is the kind of disease that causes excruciating suffering and disorganization in the family and social structure. More than 100 years after its first clinical description, current evidence suggests that its management remains inadequate in many respects, especially in countries where it is most prevalent."

Read the article

Read the article

december 2023

Availability and cost of basic treatments for sickle cell disease in 13 African countries - Science Direct

"Between 10 and 15 million sickle cell patients live in Africa. Several studies have shown a decrease in painful seizures, strokes, and deaths among sickle cell children living in Africa treated with hydroxyurea (HU). Many international experts therefore recommend the widespread use of HU in Africa to reduce the very high morbidity and mortality of the disease. However, in these countries there are no health insurance mechanisms and many affected families do not have sufficient income to pay for care."

december 2023

Availability and cost of basic treatments for sickle cell disease in 13 African countries - Science Direct

Congratulations to the DREPAFRIQUE scientific council and colleagues from 13 francophone African countries who participated in this study that provides data on the availability and cost of sickle cell treatment in Africa:

Friday, December 8, 2023: Availability and cost of essential drugs for sickle cell disease in 13 countries of French-speaking Africa, 87th congress of internal medicine in Paris (France)

Saturday, 9 December 2023: 65th Amarican Society of Haematology (ASH) Congress: Availability and cost of basic drugs for sickle cell disease in 13 African countries

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URDFS: Promotion 2025 of the 7th session of the IUD on Sickle Cell Disease - MESRI

URDFS: Promotion 2025 of the 7th session of the IUD on Sickle Cell Disease - MESRI

Sickle cell disease: "There are two big hopes, the marrow transplant and gene therapy" - TV5 Monde

Sickle Cell Disease in Africa: The Challenges of Better Care for Millions of People with Sickle Cell Disease - BBC

Sickle cell disease is "the world’s first genetic disease," warns Robert Hue - FranceInfo

Sickle Cell Disease, a forgotten disease - jeuneafrique