Epidemiology of Sickle Cell Disease in Switzerland

Sickle cell disease is a rare hereditary blood disorder, in which the red blood cells contain an altered form of haemoglobin (haemoglobin S), causing them to become sickle-shaped, thereby easily clump-ing together and clogging blood vessels. In this report, we make a rough estimation of the preva-lence (frequency of the disease: How many cases are there?) and incidence (new occurrences of the disease: How many cases are added annually?) of sickle cell disease for Switzerland. The existing data for Switzerland are of poor quality, which is why we transfer estimates for Germany to Switzer-land. It appears that there can be assumed to be between 200 and 700 existing cases in Switzerland (prevalence) as well as annually 8 to 16 births with sickle cell disease (incidence).