was born on march 13 1946 in kukurantumi in eastern ghana to kwasi adde ohene and adwoa odi boafo his father was a cocoa farmer and a prominent member of a royal familykwaku attended a boarding school prempeh college then went to yale university where he majored in biology and was captain of the track and field team setting indoor and outdoor records in the high hurdles while a student he met janet williams who was attending cornell university they married on june 6 1970 one week after they had both graduateddr ohenefrempong said in an interview in 2019 that he first found out about sickle cell when he and some friends attended a lecture about the disease at yale as he sat listening he said he suddenly recognized the disease it was in his family but had gone undiagnosed one of his cousins had the symptoms and died at 14he was in pain he said of his cousin his eyes were very yellow and he was very skinnydr ohenefrempong continued on to medical school at yale then went to new york hospitalweill cornell medical center in manhattan for his residency he studied pediatric hematology at the childrens hospital of philadelphia before moving to the tulane university school of medicine in new orleans where he was associate professor of pediatricsin his six years at tulane he established the tulane sickle cell center of southern louisiana a medical care facility and helped the state health department develop a newbornscreening program for the diseasedr ohenefrempong returned to childrens hospital in 1986 and remained there for 30 years before leaving to work full time in ghana at the kumasi center for sickle cell disease a research and treatment center he was still based there when he returned to philadelphia for cancer treatmenthe was very very aware of the limitations of working in africa ms ohenefrempong said his goal was to raise the standards of care he said it can be done in america and that is our goal hereas part of that mission dr ohenefrempong became president of the sickle cell foundation of ghana and the national coordinator for the american society of hematologys consortium on newborn screening in africahis honors and accolades were many including from ghana the order of the volta in 2010 and the millennium excellence award in medicine in 2015 in the united states in 2020 he received the assistant secretary of health exceptional service medal the highest civilian award given by the public health service part of the department of health and human services the american society for hematology honored him in 2021 with its stratton award for translational and clinical sciencebut despite the progress that dr ohenefrempong and others had made in caring for people with sickle cell disease his son kwame did not survive it he died in 2013 at age 40 the father of two young childrenin addition to his wife dr ohenefrempong is survived by his daughter afia ohenefrempong three brothers kwabena ohenedokyi kwasi