An international one-day symposium held by the Paediatric Nephrology Department of the Sindh Institute of Urology and Transplantation (SIUT) has brought into focus the health hazard and complications of medical problems resulting from genetic disorders due to inter-family marriages.
The symposium was addressed by a number of national and international medical specialists, who underscored the prevalence of consanguineous (cousin) marriages across the world, observing that, regretfully, Pakistan is one in which the issue is prevalent.
More than 60 percent of the marriages in Pakistan are inter-family marriages, resulting in a gene pool severely undermined, said experts.
“This is a silent genetic time bomb. With so many inter-family marriages, we are finding more and more children being born with inherited disorders that are hard, if not impossible, to treat,” cautioned one of the keynote speakers at the symposium.
UK’s Dr Moin Salem and other speakers resonated the concern, adding that thalassemia major is a shining example of an avoidable genetic disease.
Dr Salman Kermani, paediatric endocrinologist at Aga Khan University Hospital, said that thalassemia children undergo monthly transfusions for life and later face complications such as organ damage.
They emphasized genetic counselling for risk families and requested general practitioners and paediatricians to send patients to specialists at the earliest opportunity. Speakers appealed to doctors to play a leading part in educating the public and counsellors in families.
“Prevention of such disorders begins with awareness. Physicians have to advise families, particularly in those communities where cousin marriages are culturally prevalent,” said Dr Lanewala.
Speakers at the symposium demanded coordinated national approaches, such as mandatory pre-marital screening for specific hereditary disorders and genetic education in health promotion campaigns.
