Screening for thalassaemia

Star: KUALA LUMPUR: In a move to check the spread of thalassaemia, the Health Ministry will encourage soon-to-be-married couples to go for voluntary screening to check if they are carriers of the disease.
If found to be carriers, they would be counselled and educated about the risk of conceiving children with thalassaemia, said minister Datuk Dr Chua Soi Lek.
Thalassaemia is a hereditary disorder of insufficient haemoglobin in the red blood cells that leads to anaemia.
A pilot project of the programme would start soon in Penang, Kedah, Malacca and Sabah, Dr Chua said in a speech read out by his deputy Datuk Dr Abdul Latiff Ahmad at the launch of World Thalassaemia Day celebrations here yesterday.
“We are not stopping them from getting married but only to create an awareness and to provide them with the knowledge (about the disease),” Dr Chua said.
The programme is part of a four-pronged comprehensive plan to tackle the disease that also include the provision of free iron chelation therapy (a medical process of removing heavy metal from the bloodstream) for children with thalassaemia, a public education programme to increase awareness and the setting up of a national thalassaemia registry.
There are an estimated 2,500 thalassaemia patients in Malaysia, with 120 to 350 new patients every year.
At a press conference later, Dr Abdul Latiff was asked if Malaysia planned to make it compulsory for couples intending to get married to go for the screening.
He said: “It is a human rights issue. We can persuade them to go for the screening. If they go ahead with their intention to get married after knowing that one of them is a thalassaemia carrier, what can be done?”
“Love is blind. They will not see what’s coming but through the screening they will find out if their future life partner is a carrier of the disease.”
On whether the Government would consider including the use of magnetic resonance imaging to assess cardiac iron in thalassaemia patients in the future, he said: “There is no such plans yet. We will review it based on request from the people.”