KARACHI: Emphasising the need for creating awareness about the health risks involved in cousin marriages, health experts at a workshop informed the audience that parental consanguinity was found to be a common factor in 70 per cent children who received cochlear implants in the country in 10 to 15 years.

Those children also suffered from impaired speech and mental growth, they said at the event held at the Dow University of Health Sciences (DUHS) on Tuesday.

The event — 3rd Cochlear Implant Workshop — was organised by the department of head and neck surgery of the DUHS.

“A total of 2,000 to 2,500 children received cochlear implants in Pakistan in 10 to 15 years ago. The data collected showed cousin marriage to be a common factor in 70 per cent cases of hearing loss,” Prof Iqbal Khayani, a senior ENT specialist. The number must have increased further in recent years, he added.

Similar findings, he pointed out, were discovered by a UK expert who found parental consanguinity strongly associated with hearing loss among couples of Pakistani origin.

The risk for birth defects in cousin marriages had been found to increase sharply compared to non-consanguineous marriages because then there was a greater chance that both would have a gene of the same recessive condition.

The perfect time for implantation of an inner hearing device is the age when the child is two to three years old when he starts learning speech.

“The device cannot be installed after three and a half years because the child’s ability to store and hear words is no longer there.

Citing some data on cochlear implants, Prof Khayani said 736,900 children worldwide had cochlear implants by December 2019 and the clinical outcomes had been very positive.

“A cochlear implant device, pre-operation tests and hospitalisation of a patient require a lot of money. Therefore, strict procedures are followed to determine the appropriate candidate for a surgery.”

DUHS Pro Vice Chancellor Prof Nusrat Shah underscored the need for creating awareness about the health risks involved in cousin marriages. “The medical community and religious scholars should spread awareness and dispel the misconceptions that encourage people to have cousin marriages.”

According to the data shared in the workshop, the cochlear implant programme in Pakistan started 12 to 15 years ago. In this regard, the DUHS had signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with a UK charity.

In the first phase of the programme, 52 children received the implant.

After a gap of four to five years, the audience was told, the programme had been partially revived with the efforts of few NGOs and DUHS. So far, 65 paediatric cochlear implant operations have been performed at Dow University Hospital.

According to health experts, cochlear implants are being performed on children up to the age of 1-2 years in the United States and the UK.

“There is a need for timely diagnosis of hearing loss in newborns. Parents should be educated to include hearing ability test along with other screening test at the time of birth as happens in other countries so that more and more people can benefit from this new treatment,” said DUHS VC Prof Muhammad Saeed Quraishy.

Prof Fauzia Parveen, Prof Shuja Farrukh and Prof Salman Matiullah Sheikh also spoke.

Published in Dawn, November 10th, 2021