Executive Director of Thalassemia Foundation of Pakistan and Director General Punjab Thalassemia Prevention Program, Dr. Hussain Jaffri Tuesday emphasized promoting awareness about the prevention measures of thalassemia disease which is affecting 60,000 to 100,000 people at this time.
Talking to APP, Dr. Jaffri said that thalassemia is a genetic disease that is transmitted from parents to the next generation. He pointed out that there is a 25 percent chance in every pregnancy to have a major thalassemia patient, in the case of a marriage between two carriers.
He said that the carrier rate of thalassemia is around six percent according to which about 15 million people out of 220 million of the total population of the country are the carriers of thalassemia. He said that most of the carriers are unaware of their disease because of poor diagnostic investigation.
