On 14 May, Prof Ian Roberts gave FPH’s inaugural Bazalgette lecture on the research he and his colleagues at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) have led on using tranexamic acid (TXA) to prevent deaths from acute severe bleeding. This included the CRASH-2 trial, which used TXA to stop bleeding in trauma patients, and the WOMAN trial, which used TXA to stop bleeding in women with post-partum haemorrhage (PPH).
Thanks to this work, the NHS use TXA in both trauma and maternity settings but despite the fact it’s one of the cheapest ways to save a mothers’ life, a huge number of women in low and middle income countries such as Ethiopia, Nigeria, India and Bangladesh, are still dying as a result of PPH. This is because TXA isn’t readily available in those countries.
Prof Ian Roberts – a passionate advocate for global health - used the lecture as an opportunity to call on the UK Government to improve access to TXA in low and middle-income countries. Doing that would reduce the number of preventable deaths in women with PPH and those with acute severe bleeding such as victims of car crashes, gunshot wounds or stabbings.
Prof Ian Roberts said: “Every year, hundreds of thousands of people around the world die from acute severe bleeding including women with post-partum haemorrhage and major trauma victims. A single injection of this inexpensive drug - tranexamic acid - could save over a hundred thousand lives each year. That’s why I want to use my year as FPH’s Bazalgette Professor to increase access to tranexamic acid for those who need it. No one should bleed to death for want of a drug that costs a few pounds.”
Click on the following hyperlinks to find out more about the CRASH-2 trial or the WOMAN trial.
Also FPH/RCOG/FIGO recently sent to the Rt. Hon Rory Stewart MP about this, click here to read the letter.
