Yazdi Maneksha Italia

Yazdi Maneksha Italia is a scientist who has worked for decades on sickle cell disease, an inherited blood disorder common in some tribal communities. He was named for the Padma Shri in 2024 in the field of medicine, from Gujarat ^[1].

The first patient

He was born on 10 November 1950 in Chikhli, Gujarat, and studied at the Institute of Science in Mumbai ^[2]. In 1978 he identified his first patient with sickle cell disease in Valsad, which led him to devote himself to the disease among tribal communities ^[2].

Building a programme

In 1984 he and others founded the Valsad Raktdan Kendra, a blood bank and charity, under which he set up India’s first comprehensive sickle cell clinic, offering diagnosis, counselling and care free of charge ^[2]. Later, with the ICMR, it added a laboratory for prenatal diagnosis ^[2]. After studying sickle cell programmes in the USA in 1991, he devised a low-cost model for India, and in 2006 designed the Gujarat government’s Sickle Cell Anaemia Control Programme ^[2]. In 2011 the Gujarat programme received the Prime Minister’s award for excellence in public administration and informed a national programme ^[2].

He started a mass screening programme in Gujarat that tested some 99 lakh people in tribal areas, and helped start India’s first newborn screening for the disease at Valsad ^[2]. He serves on central government committees working to eliminate sickle cell anaemia by 2047 ^[2].