Management of Opioid Use Disorder in Sickle Cell Anaemia amidst Growing Menace in the General Population

Nigeria has a very high number of sickle cell disease (SCD) population with addition of 150,000 babies born annually with the disease. Early infant diagnosis and good care make many of these babies survive to adulthood. Severe pain requiring moderately strong or very strong analgesics is a common presentation of patients with Sickle Cell Anaemia. Paediatricians find ready usefulness of Opioids which are very useful for the painful episodes among these patients. Therefore, the chances of abuse and addiction to these medications become very high and constitute additional burden on the deficient manpower in the health sector. Opioid Use Disorder among Sickle Cell Disease patients has subtle presentation, so a high index of suspicion is required to make both the diagnosis and referral to treatment centres. In this review, the epidemiology, pain pathophysiology, behavioural and pharmacologic therapy have been re-examined.