Marriages between cousins is a major reason for around 44 percent thalassaemia children registered in the city, a study conducted by the University of Health Sciences (UHS) reveals. Prof Dr Muhammad Aslam Khan, the head of the UHS Human Genetics and Biotechnology Department, conducted a study on cultural consanguinity in Punjab and highlighted the hazards of marriages between cousins and blood relatives.
Dr Khan told Daily Times that he had interviewed 206 families in Lahore and found that 89 percent parents were knotted in consanguinity marriages. He said he had found one or more thalassaemia cases in the families where cousin marriages were common. The 206 families had given birth to 720 children, out of which 318 children were inflicted with thalassaemia and 402 were found healthy. He said that out of those 318 thalassaemia patients, 174 were males and 144 were females. Out of the 420 healthy children, 209 were boys and 195 were girls, he added.
He said that during his study he had come across a fact that the parents who had thalassaemia children deliberately ignored the treatment of their female thalassaemia babies. There would have been more female thalassaemia patients, but most of the female patients had died before getting medical treatment due to the discriminate attitude of their parents, he added. He said Rs 1,800 were required for a weekly blood transfusion in a thalassaemia child. Poor parents could not afford the expenses and they preferred to give medical treatment only to their thalassaemia-effected male children, he added.
He said that in Pakistan about 82.5 percent parents are first cousins, 6.8 percent are blood relatives, 6.3 percent belong to a same caste and family, and only 4.4 percent are married out of their families.