Blood tests for Thalassaemia

Must for couples tying knot soon:

Nadira GUNATILLEKE

The Health Ministry will introduce legislation to make it compulsory for couples to get their blood tested for Thalassaemia before registering their marriage. Cyprus, Iran and several other countries have introduced this system to protect their population from Thalassaemia, a ministry spokesman said.

According to the spokesman, after testing blood, a pink card is to be issued for Thalassaemia carriers and a green card to non-carriers. The details are to be given to marriage registrars of high risk areas such as North Western, North Central and Uva Provinces.

When two pink card holders turn up to get their marriage registered the registrar will educate them on the risk of having children. According to doctors two pink card holders should avoid marriage or having children, he said. State hospitals spend only Rs 40 to test a blood sample for Thalassaemia.

In the private sector it costs around Rs 300. Blood samples of 300,000 persons need to be tested annually to prevent two Thalassaemia carriers getting married. Around 150,000 marriages are registered in Sri Lanka annually and 160 of them take place between two Thalassaemia carriers who give birth to children with Thalassaemia, the spokesman said. There are around 1600 Thalassaemia patients, the state spends around Rs 350 million to look after them.

The government's target is to reduce the number of children born with Thalassemia to seven per year by 2015. Eighty children with Thalassaemia are born annually.

Centres are to be set up at the Jaffna Teaching Hospital and Matara General Hospital to identify Thalassaemia carriers. Such centres function at all high risk areas, he added.