Lupus awareness campaign

A local organisation dealing with lupus disease is encouraging the public and people living with lupus to raise awareness and share facts about the disease.

Esther Khuele founder of Lila Butterfly Lupus Foundation said lupus is a chronic inflammatory disease that occurs when one’s immune system attacks healthy tissue and organs.

She said the awareness campaign was last month but a lot more still needed to be done.

“Our history dates back to 2009, when my daughter was diagnosed with lupus. This was a challenging period of doctors who failed to diagnose this on time to the extent that some internal organs got damaged,” said Khuele.

In Mamelodi only two families had a bad and sad experience of losing their loved ones to the disease because of the very late diagnoses.

She said the organisation was then formed by people to spread awareness of lupus.

Lila Butterfly Lupus Foundation is a registered non-profit organisation with the mission to educate and give hope to the entire society of the young, old, males and females in urban and rural areas.

“Lupus is a disease that occurs when your body’s immune system attacks your own tissues and organs (autoimmune disease). Inflammation caused by lupus can affect many different body systems – including joints, skin, kidneys, blood cells, brain, heart and lungs.

The symptoms of lupus are fatigue and fever, joint pain, stiffness, swelling, chest pains, dry eyes, headache while fingers and toes turn blue or white, confusion and memory loss.

“We are raising awareness because we want the public to know these symptoms because the cause of lupus is still unknown,” she said.

“There is more work that needs to be done about lupus, out of 240 people we spoke to about the disease only four had heard about lupus,” said Khuele.

Khuele said the foundation will continue visiting local clinics, schools and shopping malls to talk to the public about the disease and the many people that don’t know about it.

Possible causes:

– Sunlight: exposure to the sun may bring on lupus skin lesions or trigger an internal response in susceptible people.

– Infections: Having an infection can initiate lupus or cause a relapse in some people.

The foundation advised people to visit professional doctors or hospital if they show some of the symptoms listed above and demand to be tested for lupus.

For more info contact Esther Khuele on 071 480 3942.

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