KSA- Premarital tests suffer shortfalls

(MENAFN- Arab News) JEDDAH: Zuhair Rahbeeni a consultant at the Pediatric and Clinical Genetics Department of Medical Genetics at King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Center said that the criteria used for premarital health examinations fall short of proper standards.
He said the procedure is merely a waste of money as the tests do not check for the most common diseases in each individual region.
Speaking to a local publication Rahbeeni noted the absence of accurate statistics to determine the potential Saudi genetic diseases found in each person. "The criteria used in medical screening and examinations before marriage are limited to looking for only two kinds of genetic diseases: the sickle cell anemia and Mediterranean anemia" he explained.
He said that premarital medical examinations achieved a number of positives but ignore the vastness of the country and its geographical nature as some genetic diseases are not necessarily prevalent in all areas.
He noted that unilateral recessive diseases are the most common in Saudi Arabia and genetic diseases in general are produced mostly from marriages between relatives.
He further said that international statistics show that incidence rates of inherited diseases amount to one in every 700 births while the incidence of unilateral disease genes amounts to 25 percent of all pregnancies especially in cases of marriages among relatives.
He stressed the need to raise awareness among the public to take preventive measures to check the growth and trnsmission of genetic diseases thus reducing their occurrence.