Santoor Maestro Pdt Tarun Bhattacharya along with Subhojit Roy Public Image Chairman of  Rotary launched the calendar on the occasion of World Thalassaemia Day which was held on 8th May.

There is very little awareness about the disease in the absence of a national plan to prevent, control and provide adequate treatment for patients. Although some States provide free transfusion and some free medicines to thalassaemics, there is a need for a better care facility and emergency services and lab tests.

Strategies to control thalassaemia need to include 1) Educating health professionals, school and college students, pregnant women and the population at large 2) Establishing prenatal diagnosis facilities in different regions of the country 3) Setting up a greater number of Day Care Centres for managing existing thalassaemia patients 4) Developing cost-effective facilities for stem cell transplantation across the country. This review explores strategies by which Central and State Governments, NGOs, Parents-Patients Societies and Corporate Houses can work together to successfully reduce the burden of hemoglobinopathies in India. The good news is Guidelines for implementation of such a national programme have recently been prepared by the National Health Mission, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare with the help of several experts in the country.

Rotary International District 3291 operating in 13 revenue Districts in West Bengal have been supporting thalassaemia patients since 1997 and have raised funds for the patients and have been consistently creating awareness campaigns in schools, colleges and villages.  Celebrated faces as Mithun Chakraborty, Sunil Gavaskar, Shahrukh Khan, Juhi Chawla, Soumitra Chatterjee, Rituparna Sengupta have given their names to the cause of spreading awareness.  But little has been achieved so far thanks to a lack of policy frame work and lack of legal sanctions towards making the carrier test mandatory.