A LAW, however sound and well framed, can only be as good as its implementation. KP’s Preventive Health Act is one such example. This crucial piece of legislation was enacted by the provincial assembly of KP — then known as NWFP — in 2009, with the objective of requiring compulsory thalassaemia and hepatitis C tests for people planning to marry. However, seven years down the road, the KP government has yet to frame the rules for the implementation of the law, which means the legislation has in effect been languishing on the statute books while the problem it was meant to address continues unchecked.

Diseases such as thalassaemia and hepatitis C impose a formidable burden on the country’s already creaky health infrastructure. The first is an inherited blood disorder that can manifest itself either as thalassaemia major or thalassaemia minor, with the more severe form requiring regular blood transfusions and accompanied by a number of serious side effects such as enlargement of the liver and spleen. Genetic screening is particularly important because every child born to a couple with thalassaemia minor — which may be present with no symptoms or only very slight anaemia — has a 25pc chance of having thalassaemia major. There are around 4,000 cases of thalassaemia major in KP alone. The tradition of inter-family marriage in this country makes it imperative that couples enter their union having made an informed decision. After all, forewarned is forearmed. As for hepatitis C, the risk associated with this viral disease for a couple is that it can be passed from one to the other while sharing items of personal hygiene and from mother to child at birth. Pakistan has the second highest incidence of hepatitis C in the world after Egypt. The Preventive Health Act is thus a pragmatic attempt to deal with a very real problem. However, it has come up against another reality of Pakistan: the penchant for delay and lack of follow-up that renders good intentions, and good laws, futile.

Published in Dawn, December 6th, 2016