A special meeting

This picture I have to post alone because it's special. These three girls were all adopted from India and all have HPS. The twins are well known to those who are regular readers. Nisha is in the middle and her story is a special one to the Network. Her mom has let us use the story to help educate doctors about why it's so important to screen for HPS. She also let us use Nisha's story for fundraising.

These three girls (as well as several others from India) are proof that you can't just screen only Puerto Ricans for HPS. It does happen all around the world. So far we know of people of Indian decent with HPS types 1 and 4. We don't yet have any basis to think there's another founder's effect in India, however, albinism is reported to be more common in parts of India than in other places in the world. Every time we get a new person of Indian background, I go back to my map to see if we start to build a cluster in any particular geographic area.

So far there's nothing to report.

Still, sharing both the experience of being adopted from the same country, and of having HPS, is a lot to share with anyone and thus makes a meeting particularly special.

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Living on the frontlines

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