PESHAWAR, May 7: Provincial Health Minister Inayatullah Khan on Saturday launched a project to spread awareness regarding prevention of thalassaemia.

“This is the first-ever project in the public sector aimed at raising the awareness level of people regarding the killer disease and we need media support to achieve the goal,” the minister said while inaugurating the project at the Pakistan Medical Research Council (PMRC) in Khyber Medical College.

He asked the officials concerned to finalize a draft so that legislation could be done about pre-marriage tests of couples.

“In Iran, Saudi Arabia and other countries, marriages are not allowed between the couples having thalassaemia minor. We would try to put in place laws to check such marriages and also to legalize abortion of such couples who are at the risk of producing thalassaemia-infected children.”

The minister said that the project would be carried out over a period of three years at a cost of Rs30 million.

Project coordinator Prof Abdul Hameed, briefing the gathering, said that a study would be conducted to ascertain the prevalence of disease in the province. “Thalassaemia is a genetic disease,” he said.

He said that 25 per cent of children whose fathers and mothers were carriers of thalassaemia major remained at the risk of falling victim to the ailment.

He said a provincial screening centre would be established at the PMRC and similar programmes would be started in the districts where the prevalence of the ailment was high.

“Efforts will be made to educate people about screening before getting married,” said Dr Zahoorullah, another member of the project. Plans were being made to constitute mobile teams for screening the high-risk families, he added.