Cousin marriage is responsible for 70 percent hearing loss among the new born babies in Pakistan as every year 2-3 percent children are born with hearing loss in the country.
This was stated at the 3rd Cochlear Implant Workshop organized by the Department of Head and Neck Surgery, Dow University of Health.
It was informed at the workshop that the children born with hearing impairment also suffer from lack of mental growth.
The perfect time for the implantation of an inner hearing device is the age of two to three, as a child learns to speak and his sense of humor increases for three to four years.
This device cannot be installed after the age of three and a half year, even if this implant is given, it will be useless and the money will be wasted because the child’s ability to store and hear words is no longer there. Science.
Chief guest Prof Muhammad Saeed Quraishy addressed that we can reduce the number of people considered as a burden on the society and increase the number of “bright minded” people in Pakistan through Cochlear Implantation. This is the most expensive treatment as compared with results and costs.
There is still a lot of work to be done in this area to make this treatment cheaper and more effective. Speakers in various sessions of the workshop, emphasized the benefits of timely implanted cochlear.
Pro Vice-Chancellor of Dow University of Health Sciences Prof. Nusrat Shah said that following the motto “Precaution is better than cure” we need to spread awareness that steps should be taken to prevent inter-cousins marriages.
Literacy rate is higher and the ratio of inter-cousin marriages is relatively low in cities as compared to rural areas where inter-cousin marriages are very common.
There are many such cases in the rural side, they do not have treatment facility or resources.
Medical community and religious scholars should spread awareness and clear it to the masses that it is not mandatory to marry your cousins, our religion, Islam, only allows inter-cousin marriages.
Prof. Fauzia Parveen, Principal, Dow International Medical College, Prof. Shuja Farrukh, Chairman of Department of ENT, Prof. Salman Matiullah Sheikh, Prof. Zeba Ahmed Head of ENT Unit II, Dow University, Prof. Sareen Naz, Dr. Iqbal Khan. Dr. Najam-ul-Haq and others addressed the workshop.
Prof. Iqbal Khayani said that by December 2019, 736,900 children worldwide have had cochlear implants and their results are emerging positively.
The cost of cochlear implants, pre-operation tests and hospitalization takes a lot of money, therefore, strict procedures are followed to determine the appropriate candidate for cochlear implant surgery. The cochlear implant program in our country started 12 to 15 years ago.
In this regard, Dow University has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with a UK charity organization and in the first phase of the program in 2012-13, an audiologist, a speech therapist and two cochlear implants surgeon were sent to London for training, and Dow University funded cochlear implants in 52 children through its own efforts and funds, but many registered children are still deprived of this treatment due to financial issues.
After a gap of 4 to 5 years, the program has been partially revived with the efforts of a few NGOs and Dow University, which has been slowing down unnecessarily.
So far, 65 pediatric cochlear implant operations have been performed at Dow University Hospital.
Other health experts said that according to the World Health Organization (WHO), 360 million people suffer from hearing impairment or deprivation for any reason.
Percentage of people with hearing loss, with 2.5 to 3% of children having congenital hearing loss.
The health experts added that in the United States and the United Kingdom, cochlear implants are being performed on children up to the age of 1-2 years to achieve significant results. There is a need for timely diagnosis of children with hearing loss issue.
Parents must be informed and guided to include hearing ability test along with other screening test at birth as followed by the developed countries so that more and more people can benefit from this new treatment.
