Rare Diseases Day

Context:

World Rare Disease Day is observed every year on the last day of February.

What is Rare Disease?

• A rare disease also referred to as an orphan disease, is any disease that affects a small percentage of the population.
• Each rare disease may only affect a handful of people, scattered around the world, but taken together with the number of people directly affected is equivalent to the population of the world’s third-largest country.

What causes rare diseases?

• There are many different causes of rare diseases. The majority are thought to be genetic, directly caused by changes in genes or chromosomes.
• In some cases, genetic changes that cause disease are passed from one generation to the next.
• In other cases, they occur randomly in a person who is the first in a family to be diagnosed.
• Many rare diseases, including infections, some rare cancers, and some autoimmune diseases, are not inherited.
• The most common rare diseases identified in India are Haemophilia, Thalassemia, Sickle-cell Anaemia, Primary Immuno Deficiency, Lysosomal Storage Disorders such as Gaucher Disease, Fabry Disease, Hunter Syndrome, and Pompe’s Disease.