Primary Immunodeficiencies in Africa: a preliminary idea

1. Primary Immunodeficiencies in Africa: a preliminary idea Introduction There is renewed interest in Africa for Primary ImmunoDeficiencies, especially since the creation of the African Society for ImmunoDeficiencies (ASID; Casablanca, 2008). So national teams have doubled their efforts and an extraordinary collaboration has been established between the countries where care and research have made some progress. Sensitization sessions and training schools were held in several countries, including Mauritania and South-Africa. The second ASID congress is expected in March 2011 in Tunisia. This work’s purpose is to estimate the number of PIDs in countries who have series, including publications from the works presented during the first ASID congress in 2008. Bousfiha AA, Esser M, Ailal F, Jeddane L, Boukari R, El Marsafi A, Eley B, Barbouche R, Bejaoui M From African Society for ImmunoDeficiencies, website: www.asid.ma Results If we do a projection based on the high prevalence in France (Gathmann B, 2009), we can expect to treat 37568 PIDs in Africa (see Table 1). If the incidence is 10.3 per 100,000 per year as reported by Joshi AY, 2009, we expect to treat 104019 PIDs per year. The overall number of PIDs reported at Casablanca in 2008 was 1049 (see Table 2). Regarding the number and distribution of PIDs in the 8 groups of the IUIS PID expert committee classification, we note that some diseases have specific distribution in Africa. For example, MHC class II deficiency and CGD are relatively common and predominant antibody deficiencies are less common. Several diseases cannot be diagnosed, in the absence of immunological and genetic investigations. Immunoglobulin substitution therapy is available in several countries, but only some countries have access to bone marrow transplantation. Table 1- Number of PID patients and Number of PID patients per year estimated in the world, Africa and Europe. * Calculated on the basis of a prevalence of 3.72 per 100 000 (B. Gathmann, 2009). ** Calculated on the basis of an incidence of 10.3 per 100,000 persons per year (AY JOSHI, 2009). [1,2] Table 2- PID distribution in several African countries and in Europe [3] Conclusion • National efforts and African cooperation are ongoing, supported by ESID but also national associations, the Jeffrey Modell Foundation and IPOPI. In this framework, an African registry project is in progress with the support of the ESID. • References: • Gathmann B, France, 2009. • Joshi A.Y, USA, 2009. • Bousfiha AA et al, Epidémiologie et classification des déficits immunitaires primitifs, Rev Mar Mal Enf 2008, vol 18