Sri Lanka Reports on Thalassemia Spending
January 16, 2009 – According to a story in the January 8 edition of Sri Lanka’s Daily News, the government’s Healthcare and Nutrition Ministry spends 5% of its annual budget on individuals with thalassemia.
The article states that Sri Lanka has approximately 2,000 thalassemia patients and that almost 100 children are born with thalassemia annually. (The article does not provide information on what forms of thalassemia are included in these numbers.) The government spends approximately 350,000,000,000 rupees (3,074,221,500 US dollars) annually on thalassemia patient care.