The Dhaka Times Desk In one word, it is a strange country. Because in this country, love and marriage all depend on the gene test! Maybe you have never heard such a thing before. There is such a strange country today.
In one word, it is a strange country. Because in this country, love and marriage all depend on the gene test! Maybe you have never heard such a thing before. There is such a strange country today.
We all know that in most of the countries of the world, people do their relationship like love or marriage according to their choice. Especially love is never in exchange for anything or subject to any conditions. Love can only happen if the mind matches the mind.
But marriageable men and women have to think about the future generation before falling in love or marriage in Nigeria. Relationships like marriage are thought of based on genetic testing. This is because a significant number of people in the country carry genes that may be responsible for sickle cell disease (SCD) in the future. Demilola Ogunpebi, a Nigerian communication expert got married recently. However, he had to go a long way to get married. He had to search for a suitable bride for marriage. Although many like them, two were not married due to unsatisfactory results of genetic tests.
Regarding this Demilola said, I searched for a long time before finding my current partner. There were extensive problems with appropriate genotypes. Whenever I went on a 'date' with someone, the first question I had to face was - What is your genotype? Even after meeting many in this way, the relationship never progressed due to mismatched genotypes. Basically, people show reluctance to form a relationship like marriage with those who have the quality of sickle cell disease in their genes.
Sickle cell disease is primarily an inherited blood disorder. That is, it is passed to the next generation through the blood of the parents. Blood cells in people with SCD are usually C-shaped. However, hemoglobin in healthy blood transports oxygen throughout the body. The hemoglobin in the blood of a healthy person is usually smooth, round and flexible. However, blood hemoglobin levels are always abnormal in patients with SCD. Anemia, unbearable pain and other symptoms also appear in the body of such patients. Because of this, when such individuals marry and give birth to children without genotype testing, the risk of those children being affected by sickle cell disease is many times higher. More than one and a half million children are born with SCD every year in Nigeria, which is known to be the highest in the world.
Note that in 2006, a report by the World Health Organization said that 24 percent of people in Nigeria carry the sickle cell gene. At least 20 children per thousand are born with sickle cell.
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