Every year, 20^th may is celebrated as world autoimmune arthritis day with the purpose of spreading awareness about joint related diseases among the society.

Awareness regarding arthritis problems has not been as much as has been about heart diseases, diabetes, cancer and AIDS. These diseases, as they can be life threatening, attract more public attention, but these diseases can be crippling for the patients capable of making them handicapped. This was explained by the eminent joint replacement surgeon and orthorheumatologist, Dr Manish Agrawal, of GBH American hospital, Udaipur.

Dr. Agrawal informed that Arthritis is of many types, some of the common types are Rheumatoid Arthritis, Osteoarthritis and Gout, which vary on types of joint in the human body. Symptoms of which are frequent pain in joints, swelling and problem while walking.

Dr Agrawal told, prevalence of joint arthritis in India is about 0.34 %, which means, 3 to 4 persons in every 1000 population is affected by this problem. This means, in India, out of 1.2 billion population, there are about 5 million people affected by arthritis. This figure is just the tip of ice-berg. As these are the numbers of seropositive cases only. Actual numbers in society would be manifolds. Females are almost 5 times more affected compared to males. In Rajasthan the prevalence has been found to be 0.8 %, which is almost double of the national average.

Treatment of arthritis is possible through medicines and knee transplant after certain level of illness. Consuming steroids could be really harmful for the patients, while Disease Modifying anti-Rheumatic Drug (DMARDs) could be very affective,” said Dr. Manish Agrawal.