A Nigerian man has been left confused and perplexed after discovering that his 5-year-old daughter has sickle cell anemia (SS) while he and his wife have genotypes SC and AA, respectively.
The man expressed his confusion and concern as his daughter has been falling sick frequently. After undergoing a test, they found out that she carries the sickle cell gene.
According to the father of three, he was surprised by the test result because the probability of his wife, with an AA genotype, giving to a child with the sickle cell gene is zero.
He said he went to the hospital where the child was born, LAUTECH Teaching Hospital, to seek an explanation, but they could not provide any answers.
The young man has now turned to social media to seek the assistance of netizens to help him uncover the root cause of the situation and also help his ailing child.
A Twitter user @Letter_to_Jack who relayed the incident on the microblogging platform wrote,
"I heard the most shocking story yesterday:
An indigent married man living with Sickle Cell Disease reached out to an NGO that his 5 year old daughter, one of their 3 children, was constantly falling ill. They got help and went to a hospital to carry out a series of tests. The tests revelead that the little girl is SS.
The result shook the parents, given that the mother is AA and the father is SC. That is, it is scientifically impossible for any of the couple's biological children to be SS. Even in the worst-case scenario, where the mother commits paternity fraud, it's still scientifically impossible for any of her biological children to be SS- as both the mother and the father must pass on the defective form of the sickle cell gene for a child to be affected.
The mother was advised to repeat her genotype tests, she obliged and results from different laboratories revealed that she's indeed AA. Their daughter remained SS.
The man went back to the state government hospital where the child was born (name withheld for the time being), the hospital repeated the tests and results were exactly as they were (Mum- AA, Dad- SC, Daughter- SS).
All evidence at hand points to the possibility that the baby may have been swapped at birth. Can you imagine this madness?
That, however, is the least of the family's immediate problems. The poor child had a severe crisis a couple of days ago and they are seeking for financial assistance to take good care of her and keep her alive, pending the time they get to the root of the matter. I did my part, but unfortunately, it's nowhere close to being enough."
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