Six years after the ratification of the law, the State of Qatar began conducting tests mandatory before marriage this week, where the examination is intended mainly to couples who may be tied to the kin of any potential health risks to their offspring in the future as a result of their marriage alert, especially since nearly half of all marriages conducted through the Gulf states are marriages between cousins ​​and constantly increasing frequency according to a recent study published in The Asian Pacific Journal Of Cancer Brivencn magazine, a specialized magazine in the prevention of cancer. Qatar is experiencing the highest rate of marriages between relatives, reaching 54 percent, and this percentage has increased by about 30% from what it was when the previous generation.

Not necessarily be a marriage between cousins ​​or relatives problem in itself, but a lot of the serious - including sickle cell anemia and cystic fibrosis and atrophy of spinal muscular and mental retardation, epilepsy, Down syndrome - genetic disorders can become more common with 20% of the population who spreads them inbreeding.

Dr. Ahmed Tibi, a professor of pediatrics and genetic medicine head of the pediatric department at the Faculty of Medicine and Weill Cornell, who has been on the research in the Arab genetic disorders for more than 25 years and contributed to the recent study, said: "It's really a problem, the issue is here is not a marriage between relatives, but the issue here is to avoid diseases, but in practice, realism is not only one of us carries gene is intact, when we are the product of marriage relatives brings the possibility that we are carrying the same gene is natural. "

The marriage between relatives of the second degree or marriage between the cousins ​​kinship far or marriage between the no kinship link between them has very little impact on inherited genetic disorders, but the children of first-degree relatives who are involved in 12.5% ​​of the genes are vulnerable to exposure of the disorder gene Genetic twice more than is the case with the children the general population. It is also for the people who intermarry regularly over successive generations, the exposure of the disorders can increase steadily; and if there are certain disorders more common in the group of the population, the probability of occurrence can be multiplied exponentially; In the Gulf region, we find that most marriages are between first cousins.

A report issued by the Centre for Arab Genomic Studies - Dubai-based - in September that a handful of genetic diseases - including thalassemia, diabetes and Down syndrome - has reached epidemic levels (more than 100 cases per 100,000 ) in several Gulf countries. The report also found that among the Arabs there is a genetic disorder highest rates in the world due almost two-thirds to marriages between relatives ...