Mclaine Manyepa, an 11-year-old Zimbabwean boy, was diagnosed with sickle cell anemia — a disease that causes a shortage of healthy red blood cells — when he was six.
At one stage the condition required him to undergo several blood transfusions a week. This cost his family up to $145 per 450-milliliter pint of blood in a country where 73% of the population earns less than $100 a month.
It was too heavy a burden for his parents to bear but fortunately for them, his diagnosis was soon followed by a government initiative to provide free blood at all public health centers countrywide.