Daily Times

Sir: Every year 5,000 to 10,000 children are born with thalassemia. Thalassemia is an inherited blood disorder in which body makes an abnormal form of hemoglobin. If either parents or any one of them are carriers of thalassemia then kids have 25 percent chance of inheriting major form of thalassemia. Thalassemia has two forms alpha-thalassemia and beta-thalassemia.

In alpha-thalassemia, at least one of the alpha globin genes has a mutation or abnormality. In beta-thalassemia, the beta globin genes are affected.

In thalassemi,a hemoglobin is the protein molecule in red blood cells that carries oxygen. The disorder results in excessive destruction of red blood cells, which leads to anemia. Anemia is a condition in which your body doesn’t have enough normal, healthy red blood cells.

According to the Centere for Disease Control (CDC), thalassemia is most common in people from Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Greece and Turkey.

It is too difficult to survive for a major thalassemia patient. Because he cannot survive without injection of blood. And he requires 200ml blood for the life of one month.

The objective is to inform you about this serious disease. One should not marry unless one verifies through medical check-up that one is not a victim of this disease. If everyone follows this rule, a day will come when we will get a society without any thalassemia patients.

MUHAMMAD SAAD

Karachi