Rafal A. Khudeir
Background:
Premarital screening programs is total medical checking for couples who are about to get married, in order to prevent diseases which may affect the quality of marriage and the health of future generations and to provide premarital health guidance. PMS contains different items in different regions.
In Iraq in PMS is important strategy in countries like Iraq where consanguineous marriage is common, therefor screening is included apart of existing mandatory premarital blood test.
The assessment system provides guidance on how to adapt the program to meet the needs of the community. Thalassemia is a major health problem with prevalence of carrier range from 4.4%-6.6% Hepatitis B,C virus infections are also major public health concern due to their serious complications ,several studies have shown the prevalence of hepatitis B,C in Iraq to be intermediate to highly endemic infections.
Objectives:
1. To measure the prevalence of HBV, HCV and Thalassemia among people attending premarital screening centers in Diyala.
2- To determine the trends of HBV, HCV and Thalassemia in premarital screening centers in Diyala from (2015-2018).
Method: This cross-sectional study was conducted at five Premarital Screening Centers in diyala province from March _ Sep 2019. Data collection was for the period from 2015-2018 by reviewing the registry books in 5 premarital screening centers and monthly report from public health department and public health lab. all people attending this centers and their lab investigation showing thalassemia ,HBV,HCV,HIV were included in this study.
Result: By this study appeared the total people attending premarital centers for the period from 2015-2018 was 98658, thalassemia was the highest recorded disease among all those involved in premarital screening followed by HBV, HCV and the least was HIV.
The prevalence of thalassemia increased from 9.97 during 2015 to 18.8 during 2018 with a sharp rise after 2016, HBV increased from 0.96 during 2015 to 3.29 during 2018, HCV was 0.21 during 2015 reaching 0.82 during 2018 with an obvious decline during 2017 reaching 0.07 and HIV was recorded in only one couple during 2017.
Conclusion: The result showed increase in the prevalence of Thalassemia, HBV, HCV, HIV, Thalassemia and HBV were significantly higher among females partner.