• Question: Is there a specific rare disease that you feel strongly about?

    Asked by Georgia Myler to Helen on 15 Jun 2017.
    • Photo: Helen Frost

      Helen Frost answered on 15 Jun 2017:

      Hi Georgia,
      There’s no single rare disease that I feel strongly about (although I’d probably feel differently if I had a family member suffering from one) but what alarms me is the scale of rare diseases. There are roughly 8000 different rare diseases, with an average of 230,000 patients suffering from each. So the total number of people with a rare disease is approximately 30 million in Europe alone! That’s more than the combined population of the Netherlands, Luxumbourg and Belgium. But since these 8000 rare diseases are all completely different, we need to find 8000 different cures, which is a tough challenge.

Comments

  • Photo: Georgia Myler

    Georgia Myler commented on :

    Hey Helen,
    Thank you for getting back to me, I honestly never knew how many rare diseases there are and how many cures we need to find, My grandad had kidney cancer a few years ago but that’s about it, I feel really strongly about finding cures and would do anything to help!

  • Photo: Helen

    Helen commented on :

    Hi Georgia,
    I’m sorry to hear about your Grandad. The world needs lots of passionate people to help find solutions for all sorts of problems, and I hope that one day you can contribute to finding a cure for something, or help people in some other way. Remember to always work hard and think carefully about how you can do your best.