1.1. Prevalence of Haemophilia in EU
In order to obtain prevalence information for individuals living with haemophilia A and B in Europe, relevant information from the World Federation of Haemophilia (WFH) annual global surveys and the literature were reviewed. To estimate the prevalence of haemophilia throughout Europe, in general, the WFH 2018 survey was utilized [1]. For countries where prevalence was not available from the 2018 survey, the most recent version of the WFH report that contained the relevant data was used.
Table 1 presents data of the haemophilia A and B prevalence for the European countries who reported data to the WFH. According to the consolidated WFH survey data, the prevalence among European countries ranged from 0.27 per 10,000 males in Finland to 1.38 per 10,000 males in Ireland for Haemophilia A and 0.06 per 10.000 males in Finland to 0.51 per 10.000 in Ireland.
In a recent meta-analysis [7] it was shown that more than 1,125,000 men around the world have an inherited bleeding disorder; 418,000 of those have a severe version of haemophilia. Previously, only 400,000 people globally were estimated to have haemophilia. The results proposed an estimate of 2.46 cases per 10.000 males for all severities of haemophilia A and 0.5 cases per 10.000 males for all severities of haemophilia B. Applying a prevalence of 2.96 cases per 10.000 males for haemophilia A and B combined to the current European population estimate of 517 million (248 million males) (retrieved fromhttps://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/data/database , accessed in June 2020) generates an estimate of 73.408 males with haemophilia in EU, of whom about 16,120 should have severe haemophilia. These estimates are higher than those historically cited but still characterize haemophilia as rare diseases on the basis of definitions used in European Union (<5 cases per 10 000 persons Regulation (EC) No. 141/2000 of the European Parliament and of the Council) [2].