PESHAWAR, March 18: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government is yet to frame rules to implement the preventive health law aimed at making thalassaemia and hepatitis-C tests compulsory for spouses before contracting marriage.

The provincial assembly had passed the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Preventive Health Bill in October 2009. The law says that a Nikah registrar shall obtain test reports of premarital screening of spouses for thalassaemia and hepatitis-C.

Section 3 (II) of the law, however, says that the result shall have no effect on the marriage being solemnised as its main objectives are to create health awareness and educate future parents, who may give birth to children with contagious and fatal diseases.

According to the law, the government shall frame rules for implementation of the Act within six months of its commencement and place the same before the assembly for information.

These diseases are spreading with alarming rate. Health officials said that around 70,000 hepatitis-C patients and some 25,000 thalassaemia patients were present in the province.

However, doctors said that number of registered patients with hepatitis-C virus was 27,000 in the province but it was increasing. Causes of thalassaemia are high birth rate and consanguineous marriages, which are very common in the region. Nikah

Ironically health department did not give proper attention to the law and put it into cold storage. No public awareness campaign regarding the law, particularly for registrars, has been conducted so far. Nikah Nikah

Many registrars in the provincial capital expressed ignorance about the introduction of the law. Syed Uzair Bukhari, a registrar, said that he still only obtained copies of national identity cards of the spouses before solemnising marriages.

“This is not our responsibility to ask the couple to produce reports of blood screening tests for the diseases. Frankly, it looks very awkward to seek such certificates from the spouses. I have never heard of the Act,” he said, stating that they did not receive orders or directives from the government in that regard. Nikah

Special Secretary Health Prof Noorul Iman, when approached, said that instead of formulating rules in black and white for the implementation of the law the health department had verbally conveyed to registrars to seek test reports from the spouses before tying the knot.

He said that there were several shortcomings in the existing law that's why it could not be effectively implemented. He added that the Act should be revisited to make it effective and tests for other diseases like HIV could also be made compulsory. Nikah

He said that health department could not deal with the registrars therefore it required proper legal mechanism.

“Major problem is that there is no prosecution in the law,” observed Prof Iman, stating that the government was restructuring health department and establishing regulation enforcement wing to ensure implementation of laws. However, the special secretary health seemed totally ignorant about the law. Nikah

Section 3 (III) of the law says that the registrar shall keep and maintain these reports for at least three years from the date the marriage is solemnised. Nikah Nikah

Clause IV of the Act says that if a marriage is solemnised in contravention of these provisions or clause (III) is violated, the licence of such registrar shall be cancelled and whoever, other than registrar, solemnises such marriage shall be fined Rs10,000.

MPA Saqibullah Khan Chamkani, who had introduced the bill in the assembly, was of the view that bureaucracy always had its own point of view and brought bills in the assembly that served official interests.

On the other hand, he said, those laws which were enacted with efforts of private members had often been ignored. He added that first the bureaucracy tried to block private member bills and even if those were passed by the assembly the government was often least interested to implement the same.