JEDDAH, 24 October 2004 — The Ministry of Health has revealed that 8,903 new cases of hereditary blood diseases were diagnosed as a result of implementing the mandatory pre-marital blood test. Dr. Mansoor Al-Hawasi, deputy director of executive affairs at the Ministry of Health, told Al-Watan newspaper that the ministry’s laboratory conducted 125,559 tests in 34 centers around Saudi Arabia during the first five months of mandatory pre-marital blood tests imposed at the beginning of this year. The results of the tests showed 5,324 cases of sickle cell anemia and 3,579 cases of thalassemia.
The decision approved by the Council of Ministers last year requiring marriage officials to get a medical certificate from couples before they are married, aimed at reducing the number of hereditary blood diseases especially sickle cell anemia and thalassemia. The test results do not prevent a couple from getting married if one or both of them is affected but it presents them with the medical facts of their condition and its consequences on their future children.
Al-Hawasi said that the Eastern Province had the highest number of cases followed by the Central Province, and the Northern Province is the least affected.
“I think it’s important to have this blood test, it helps us avoid some possible health problems,” said Alia Abdullah who recently got engaged. She had her test at the Jeddah Maternity Hospital, “it took less than half an hour and within two days I had the results,” she told Arab News. The tests are offered free of charge and the results are confidential. Saudi Arabia has one of the highest percentages in the world of people who are either carriers of sickle cell trait or with sickle cell disease.
In some regions it reaches 30% of the population. The main cause of getting sickle cell anemia is inheriting the abnormal hemoglobin from both parents who may be carriers without knowing it, and once born with the sickle cell hemoglobin it is present for life.
Sickle cell disease is a group of inherited red blood cell disorders and one of the most severe is thalassemia, when the body does not produce enough alpha or beta protein in the hemoglobin and thus the red cells do not form properly and cannot carry sufficient oxygen. A person who carries the genetic trait of thalassemia will usually experience no health problems other than a possible mild anemia. Physicians often mistake it for iron deficiency and incorrectly prescribe iron supplements. The only way to detect the presence of the trait is through a simple blood test called the hemoglobin electrophoresis.
“When the man and woman are both carriers of the trait, every time she is pregnant there is 25% chance that the baby will have the disease and 50% chance they will be carriers,” explained Abeer Almanabri, the director in the Western Region of the Project for the Prevention of Inherited Blood Diseases, a non-government project by volunteers that works under the Arab Gulf Program for United Nations Development Organizations.
Almanabri and her husband are both carriers of the trait and have a 14-year-old son suffering from thalassemia. They have been campaigning for years for this decision to be implemented.
Sickle cell diseases such as thalassemia are painful, crippling, life-long diseases that currently have no cure. Patients require regular blood transfusion and extensive ongoing medical care.
