Every year on World Haemophilia Day, celebrated on April 17, the global medical community turns its attention to a condition long characterised as a man’s disease. However, beneath this traditional narrative lies a silent, growing crisis: thousands of Indian women who carry the haemophilia gene suffer from chronic, debilitating bleeding symptoms, yet remain trapped in a cycle of misdiagnosis.

While medical textbooks once labelled women as ‘passive carriers’, the data tells a far more urgent story. According to the World Federation of Hemophilia, nearly 33 per cent of people living with haemophilia globally are female, yet the Hemophilia Federation India notes a massive registration gap, with tens of thousands of women likely missing from official records. Experts now reveal that 1 in 3 women carrying the gene have clotting factor levels below 40 per cent—technically placing them in the same category as those with mild haemophilia.