aHUS Awareness Day

aHUS or Atypical Hemolytic Uremic Syndrome is an extremely rare disease affecting about 300 people in the U.S.

On Thursday the world will celebrate the first ever aHUS Awareness Day. Zanesville resident, Shaun Spencer’s daughter Larkin was diagnosed with the disease at just 7-years-old. Spencer told us without awareness, the disease is much more difficult to diagnose.

“With this disease there are still many unknowns, over 50 percent of patients aren’t diagnosed until they are adults, but there are certain triggers, we thought she had the typical 24-hour flu,” Spencer said.

aHUS is a chronic and life-threatening condition that attacks the complement system, which can ultimately lead to kidney failure before attacking other organs. There is no cure, but Spencer said that raising awareness is hopefully one step closer to finding one.

“We just want people to be aware of what Atypical Hemolytic Uremic Syndrome is,” Spencer said. “Our main purpose is to not only educate some of the public, but we want all of our local elected officials to know about this, so we can make a little bit of noise.”

Currently there is only one drug available in the U.S. to treat the disease.