THE Oshadipe Twins Initiative (TOTI) recently organized a walk to create awareness against the deadly lupus disease, which killed one of the twins a year ago.

The event dubbed: “Walk Against Lupus,” took place in Ikeja, Lagos to mark a year of Taiwo Oshadipe’s demise.

The initiative, with the vision of a world without lupus, is an NGO created by Miss Keyinde Oshadipe with the sole aim of educating and sensitizing the public about the dreaded disease.

The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Keyinde Oshadipe disclosed to The Guardian that ordinarily as a celebrity, the cause of the death of her twin sister would have been kept a secret, but with the zeal to create awareness, “ I am here today at this event.”

According to Oshadipe, doctors have described lupus to be the dysfunction of the immune system, and, “with my experience in Taiwo’s case, we constantly treated malaria and typhoid.”

“ Though lupus has no cure, but with early detection, it can be controlled and managed. But I can tell you that Nigeria does not have equipment to diagnose the disease, blood samples have to be taken to South Africa for diagnosis”, she remarked.

“Our medical system is not as active and compassionate to people’s life as it is supposed to be, otherwise my sister would still be here, she added.

The TOTI boss explained that as per what Prof. Femi Adelowo of the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH) said before the establishment of the NGO, a lupus patient is diagnosed almost everyday at the hospital and that the disease is killing people for lack of awareness.

“Lupus is not a common disease, but we do not have to wait till it kills hundreds before attention is paid, let’s take caution before it becomes a menace”, she said.

She noted that during her sister’s treatment, she met many young girls between ages 16 and 18, who were equally suffering from the ailment, and have to halt their education.

“The medication for lupus is very expensive, as most of the medications are off-the-shelf, hence I am appealing to the government to put structures like a diagnosis and counseling Centre for the disease to help its victims manage it well”.

When The Guardian enquired how long Taiwo battled with the disease and when she was diagnosed, she replied, “I cannot really put time to it, but it was few months after she had her son. However, it took us a long time to discover that my sister had lupus, and at that time, her lungs were already affected.”

“This epidemic called lupus has no definite symptoms and its causes are not yet clearly established. I will not stop talking about lupus until there is a way out, because I lost my sister to it,” she declared.

Lupus (systemic lupus erythematosus) is an autoimmune disease that, depending on the severity, can harm the skin, kidneys, heart, nervous system, blood cells, and more.

The immune system normally fights off dangerous infections and bacteria to keep the body healthy. But in the case of lupus, the body is at war with itself,

As an autoimmune disease, the immune system mistakes the body’s own tissues as foreign invaders and attacks them.

It is more prevalent among Africans and experts say 9 out of 10 patients of lupus are female.