Recently, WEHI was designated the World Health Organization (WHO) Collaborating Centre for Anaemia Detection and Control.

The designation enlists WEHI researchers, led by Associate Professor Sant-Rayn Pasricha, to support WHO to determine the best approaches and policies to diagnose and treat anaemia and recognises the expertise of WEHI researchers in combatting anaemia.

Associate Professor Pasricha said the WHO Collaborating Centre designation would enable researchers from WEHI to support the activities of the WHO and generate the knowledge needed to form guidelines and advice to countries throughout the world.

Associate Professor Pasricha and his team have made significant advances in assessing better approaches to diagnose and manage anaemia, particularly through large-scale clinical trials in low-income countries. He said the team was currently running five randomised controlled studies in Bangladesh, South Asia and Malawi, Africa.

“The populations, environments and dietary conditions reflect these two important regions of the world. We also have excellent local partners and long-established relationships with field workers in both countries.” Anaemia is considered one of the world’s top burdens of disease.

Dr Pasricha’s program comprises three large trials investigating whether an intravenous iron treatment, given to anaemic women in pregnancy, is better than standard-of-care (oral) iron therapy in improving the physical and psychological health of mothers and their babies. Key outcomes include maternal haemorrhage, birthweight, prematurity and child brain development. These trials, set in both Malawi and Bangladesh, are funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation with grants worth more than AUD$16 million. The first of these trials should have results by late 2021.

In addition, Dr Pasricha is leading two large trials evaluating the effects of iron interventions given to infants, assessing critical child developmental and growth outcomes. These programs are funded by more than AUD$5 million in funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council. The programs have also benefitted from philanthropic funding from the Geok Hua Wong Trust, to purchase a robotic workstation for use in the laboratory in Victoria to support the research process.

While iron deficiency is often caused by a lack of iron in the diet, it can also be a sign of serious health problems such as bowel cancer or coeliac disease.

Associate Professor Pasricha and Associate Professor Jason Tye-Din, who are both also clinicians at the Royal Melbourne Hospital, recently released a paper in The Lancet on best practice for clinicians to diagnose and manage iron deficiency, together with colleagues from the University of Heidelberg, Germany, and Radboud University Medical Center, Netherlands.